m foRESt 



-^FRANK A BATES- 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



D001E5T4t.3A 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap... Copyright Ko. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



STORIES OF 

LAKE, FIELD 



. AND . . . 



FOREST. 

Rambles of a Sportsman - Naturalist. 



With Ten Hilf-Tone Engravings. 



By 
FRANK A. BATES, 

Author of " Gicie Birds of N:rth Araerica; " "Rambles of 
E::ton:oI:g:5t; ■' '• Wanier^^s in Ne-^r Hampshire;" etc 



SOUTH BRAINTREE. MASS-: 

Frank A. Bates. 

SciESTiFic A>D Historical Books, 

tS99. 




.-wz\ 



c.^'^^ 



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38845 



CopjTight 1S99 
By FRANK A. BATES. 




Weymouth and Braintree PublishingXo. 
Printers. 



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VSAjCXA>V 



^^.^^ 



CONTENTS. 



1. GEO USE SHOOTIXG EXTBAOBDIXABY. 

2. FLY-FISHING FOB WHITE PEBCH 

3. GOOSE SHOOTING. 

4. PEBCH FISHING. 

5. A TALE OF WINNEPESAUKEE. 

6. HOBN POUT FISHING. 

7. THE FOX WE DID NOT GET. 

8. INSECT HUNTING IN WINTEB. 

9. LAKE TBOUT FISHING. 

10. THE NATUBALIST IN THE WHITE 
MO UNTAINS. 



I sat hy the shore of the sounding sea, 

And a sioeet, sad song it sang to me. 

It sang of vessels buried deep, 

And men entranced in death's deep sleep. 

It sang of battles, ivhose terrible roar 

Besounded loud from shore to shore. 

It sang of monsters ichose slimy for 7ns 

Clove the shining waters, deep-hid from storms. 

Then the music changed and it sang of the sun^ 
Whose glittering beams made the ripples run 
In glistening lines to the sandy shore., 
Where lovers loalJced by the breakers' roar. 
Where beautiful shells in silence crept., 
And fishes swam and sea-birds slept. 
And it told me to listen, then tell their lore 
To the readers, who run these pages o'er. 



GROUSE SHOOTING 
EXTRAORDINARY. 



GROUSE SHOOTING EXTRAORDINARY. 



fT had been a bard day in the fields, for 
the birds were wild and w^ary. And 
when we drew up our chairs around the 
fire, after supper, it was with a sigh of relief 
to get our boots off. 

After the pipes were lighted, a comparison 
of experiences was inaugurated, and B. told 
how the old cock partridge had dodged be- 
hind a cedar, just about as soon as he got up 
from the covert ; while P. told of his sur- 
prise when he flushed a bird, and it fell to a 
shot from a thicket close by, just as he caught 
sight of it, and Will stepped out to retrieve 
his bird, and was just about as surprised to 
see P. standing there with gun at a ready. 

If you want to hear stories of gunning, 
fishing or anything else, in their pristine 
vigor, you want to sit over a rock-maple fire, 
in the kitchen of a gunning camp, after the 
day's sport is over, and hear them as they 
drop fresh from the lips of the actors them- 



8 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

selves, unattended by the results of forget- 
fulness from the lapse of thne, or fear of the 
blue pencil of the editor. 

On this particular evening, however, one 
of our circle was a professional man from the 
city, who had been a great traveller, and who, 
in the course of his varied experience, had 
been an officer in the U. S. Eegular Army. 

The talk had been mainly upon the tricks 
and dodges of the wily ruffed grouse, or 
partridge, as he was termed l)y our coterie. 
And by the way, "for ways that are dark, 
and tricks that are vain," this bird can give 
aces to any other bird and whi out every time. 

Finally our friend, whom we will term the 
Doctor, spoke up and said : 

"You fellows have been telling how smart 
and tricky your grouse were here (and I 
fully agree with you) what do you think of 
killing nearly as many grouse with stones, 
as twenty men did with guns, and in less 
time ?" 

"O, come off! Doc. tell that to the chil- 
dren !" was the cry from all directions. 

"Well, its so," said the Doctor, "and I 
was the one who did it." 



GROUSE SHOOTING EXTRAORDINARY. \) 

'*Let's have the story," said every one and 
the chairs were hitched up a little closer. 

*'I was looking at that prairie chicken in 
the case in the other room, while I was wait- 
ing for supper and thinking about the work 
that's beinoj done here in Massachusetts to re- 
stock the covers with imported game l)irds, 
and it brought back some of the times I've 
had shooting in the west. By the way, where 
was that bird shot, and when?" 

'*I shot it," said Will, right here in Win- 
chendon, on the sixth day of November, 1896. 
I thought it was a partridge when it got up, 
and I did not find out what it was till I picked 
it up. I know of two others that were shot 
near here, in the same way, and one was 
found dead beside the road, where it fell, 
after it struck the telephone wire. I would 
not have shot the one I did, if I had known 
what it was." 

**Well, there's no doubt that it was one of 
those that were put out around i'itchburg, is 
there?" 

"Oh, no! that's where it came from all 
right. But lets have that story about stoning 
partridges to death." 



10 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

"It was not exactly stoning partridges, 
for they were blue grouse (C obscura). 

While I was stationed at Fort Spokane, in 
Washington, in 1884, we were supplied with 
a certain number of shotguns and ammuni- 
tion therefor by the Government, to be used 
in supplying the Post with game, and upon 
requisition, they would be served out to the 
men, when they desired to go shooting, but 
many of the men preferred to use their rifles, 
for the grouse will run about upon the 
ground, and when flushed they fly to the 
trees, where one can easily secure them by a 
shot in the neck or fore part of the body, 
but if you hit them from behind in the back- 
bone, there will be but little of the bird left 
to carry to camp. 

One lovely day in July, about twenty men, 
some with ponies and some without, started 
out orrouse shootino- in various directions. 
Not feeling very much like this sort of sport, 
and still desiring to take a little walk, I 
vainly endeavored to convince some one that 
they could not do better than to accompany 
me, and finally started oft' alone up toward a 
ravine, where it was reported that the berries 
were thick, and without a oun, fori did not 



GROUSE SHOOTING EXTRAORDINARY. 11 

care to be bothered with the weight of a 
Springfield rifle on a warm day in July. I 
hunted for the berries for some time without 
success and at last came to the Government 
wood-pile, where I found a team and outfit, 
provisions, fire smouldering, etc., but no one 
about. This was perhaps no unusual occur- 
rence, but it was very convenient later on. 

Farther on, I saw a lot of little grouse run- 
ning about in the grass, then some larger 
ones, and finally flushed some large old birds, 
which lit in some trees just above. One of 
them settled himself cosily upon a limb, and 
sat there, cocking his head at me from side 
to side, looking, for all the world, like an 
old hen. Just for fun, I picked up a stone 
and threw it at him, but he never even 
moved. This promised a little sport, so I 
drew up on to the side of the ravine about to 
a level with the bird, where there seemed to 
to be an abundance of this sort of ammuni- 
tion, and commenced a fusilade upon him, of 
which he took no notice, until a large, slow- 
flying missile took him on the side of the 
body, and he deigned to' move about a foot 
along the liml). Another smaller one, trav- 
elling with more force, took him in the head 



12 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

and he dropped off the limb dead^ I followed 
up the same tactics upon the balance of the 
flock, and before long had two old birds and 
four half grown young, when I got tired of 
throwing stones. 

I went back to the outfit, confiscated some 
salt-pork and flour, stirred up their fire, and 
cut up two of my young birds in their pan 
with some pork, cooked them, thickened the 
fat with flour for gravy, and as the birds 
were young and tender, I enjoyed a much 
better meal than I would have had at the 
mess table. 

I got back to camp with two old birds and 
two young ones, and when tattoo was beaten, 
none of the men who w^ent out with guns had 
brought in a bird, although they had been 
hunting them all day. Just before taps, two 
of the soldiers, who had gone twenty miles 
up the river, taking turns at riding, came in 
with quite a bunch, but I nearly beat the 
crowd, with nothing but stones for ammuni- 
tion. 

The character of the blue grouse is rather 
stolid, and indifterent, but when they start 
they go like a flash, looking like a blue streak 



GROUSE SHOOTING EXTRAORDINARY. 13 

in the air, and as they were heavy, they 
made quite a commotion when they flew. 

When hunting these birds in the winter, 
we used to cross the river and take to the 
bank, which was the lower of six terraces, 
and go over a piece of each one in turn. 
The birds would flush from the lower one 
which was covered with a thick mat of sage 
brush, and fly up, keeping about one terrace 
in advance of us. The second terrace was 
more thinly overgrown with the brush which 
was mixed with a bush bearing a berry , upon 
which the birds fed. Each terrace is more 
thinly covered as you rise until the sixth is 
reached, which is covered with pines; here 
the birds take to the trees, and we would 
knock them ofl" with a rifle bullet. 

On the warmer days of winter they would 
come out and bask in the sun, on the bare 
spots, between the bushes, and it was some- 
times, especially when there was a crust, no 
small job to climb up the steep slopes after 
them. 

It is to be hoped that this is not one of 
the birds to be imported here, the gunners 
would faint at the idea of a bird that did not 
put the breadth of a county between them. 



14 LAKE, FIELD AND FOEEST. 

the instant of being flushed ; but joking one 
side, it does not seem as though this was a 
bird to be considered desirable from a 
sportsman's point of view, although they 
would no doubt stand the climate, since the 
thermometer runs as low as 48 degrees be- 
low zero in the winter, and the men would 
sit and play cards with their overcoats on, 
ear laps down, and the edge of the table 
within six inches of a red-hot stove. 
"Chain-lightning whiskey" (a compound of 
kerosene, tobacco and murder) would freeze 
on the table, but 3^et they never heard of a 
man freezing. 

Summer was as bad the other way, for 
the mercury was at 116 degrees on the par- 
ade ground for ten days together, and not a 
drop of rain all summer. 

Still the change might have an injurious 
effect, for all our attempts at acclimatization 
of birds are not as successful as that of the 
English sparrow." ~ 

''No," says AVill. "None of the birds, 
except the quail, seemed to live here a great 
while, but I don't see any reason why the 
pinnated grouse did not live and breed here. 
There used to be plenty of them here, and 



GKOUSE SHOOTING EXTRAORDINARY. 15 

there are some now, down on Martha's Vine- 
yard. The chmate can't be much worse for 
them here, than it is on the prairies." 

'*If you had ever been out on the grounds 
where the prairie chickens live you would 
change your mind,'' said the doctor." The 
trouble here, I think, is the lack of proper 
food. The chicken feeds on grain, almost 
exclusively, when there is any, but of 
course they eat enormous quantities of grass- 
hoppers and other insects, and when driven 
to it will eat buds of bushes, but they pick 
up lots of grain on the stubble in the large 
wheat and corn fields of the west even in 
winter. 

Now you know that our partridge, in the 
winter, feeds almost exclusively on buds and 
seeds of bushes ; and I think that the prairie 
hens put out here, did not find their accus- 
tomed food, and either left or died. At any 
rate very few of them ever bred. It is 
mighty risky business, trying to import ani- 
mals to new countries ; you do not know 
what turn they will take. 

I do not approve of introducing the Pheas- 
ant into Massachusetts. It sounds kind of 
big, but from what I have seen of them in 



16 LAKE, FIELD AND FOEEST. 

the North West, I would rather shoot one 
partridge than a dozen of them. They are 
quarrelsome and will drive out our grouse, 
for they will kill all the young birds they 
come across and keep the old ones so dis- 
turbed that they will not breed well. Let's 
go to bed." 



FLY FISHING FOR 
WHITE PERCH. 



FLY FISHING FOR WHITE PERCH. 



f? 1 NCE upon a time, not many moons ago, 
\y\ there lived in the colonial town of 
^^ Plymouth, a character by the name 
Bosworth ; his friends called him ' * Les " 
but he would answer to anything, even 
the dinner bell. Now Les . was nothing, 
if not a sportsman. A good shot, handy 
with the rod, something of a naturalist, he 
dearly loved his gun and rod, not because 
they killed the game for him, but because 
they gave him an excuse for tramping the 
woods, or sitting in his boat on the pond. 
If he brought home a string of fish or a 
bunch of birds, he was happy, if not he was 
content, for he brought something that was 
not as visible, but fully as satisfying, which 
can only be appreciated by the lover of na- 
ture. 

Now, Les had a score or more of friends, 
and they liked to be with him, whenever the 
stars were favorable, and among them were 



20 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

two who have to do with this story. Never 
mind whether their names were Smith, Jones 
or Brown, or whether he himself gave the 
name of Bos worth to the town clerk when he 
went to get his marriage certificate. Its all 
the same. "What's in a name?" You 
could not improve the flavor of a catfish if 
you did call him a trout. 

But to our two sports. The first and most 
important, in his own estimation at least, 
w^as Fred David. He came from "way down 
in Maine " and • his head would never brush 
the cobwebs ofl' a l)arn scaflbld unless he 
stood on a milk-pail and then he would have 
to reach ; in fact he made excellent ballast 
for a canoe, for when he sat on the bottom' 
it was ahnost as good as a lead keel. 

He liked to go fishing, and when the sec- 
ond of this trio, who we will call Ike, was 
likely to be somewhere near Les, Fred 
would make some sort of an excuse at the 
office, that his grandmother was sick or the 
plumbing was frozen up, or some such likely 
reason, and would start for home; but the 
attraction of the railroad was so great, he 
would be drawn awav from the rectitude of 



FLY FISHING FOR WHITE PERCH. 21 

his path and would find himself on ])oard the 
train for Plymouth. 

Now Ike was no fisherman, he was what 
the sailors call a Jonah, he did not care 
whether the fish bit or not, and he would sit 
in the boat and stick his birch pole over the 
side and let the little fishes nibble off his 
bait, and go off in a **dope" and wonder 
where the fish lived winters, and whether 
the kingfisher, which was swearing at him 
from an adjacent stub, speared the fish or 
simply picked them up with his mouth, or 
whether or no the dragon-flies really ate the 
mosquitoes, and all such nonsense of no 
practical use to sensible people. 

Now it came about, through the progres- 
sion of events, that these three uniques of 
the human race, were, one day in the sultry 
month of August, lounging in a canoe on the 
placid waters of Billington Sea. Ike with 
his corn-cob pipe, Avhich he forgot to pull, 
and his birch pole, with baitless hook dang- 
ling in the water. Les, with his old rod, deli- 
cately threaded with silken line, pulling in the 
fish for dinner, while Fred sat on the center 
thwart for ballast, and got oft' poor jokes on 
Ike, changed his tackle from gimp-snelled 



22 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

bass-hook to No. 8 minnow every five min- 
utes, alternating with a rubber frog or a 
Skinner spoon and occasionally pulling in a 
stray sun-fish which had lately left its mother, 
and had not yet learned it must not put too 
much trust in appearances. 

" Well" says Fred, when for four minutes 
he had allowed his hook to stop in the water, 
*' I do not believe there is a Bass in your old 
mud hole. I don't care anything about catch- 
ing those little perch, I want a Bass." 

*'Sour grapes" ejaculates Les, "you have 
had on fourteen difterent hooks in the last 
hour, do you expect to catch Bass with a 
minnow hook?" Here he stopped to pull in 
a nice white perch. "Now you ask Ike and 
he will catch a Bass for you." 

"Ike, catch a Bass! Nit, he could not 
catch cold," said Fred. 

"Betcher I could" said Ike. "But you 
would take it back to the oflfice and tell the 
boys you caught it. 

"Oh ! come oflf, Ike, fish in the cracker 
bag and catch your dinner. Why you 
haven't caught a fish today." 

"Well you have" says Ike, "you've caught 
three sun-fish, a dozen ot them would come 



FLY FISHING FOR WHITE PERCH. 23 

within an ounce of weighing. Say did you 
ever catch a fish witli that flip-flap contri- 
vance of yours ?" Betcher never caught any- 
thing but a horn pout in your life. Own up 
now, you brag on your old trout rod, did 
you ever catch a trout ?" 

"Course I have, I caught one that 
weighed a pound last Memorial Day out of 
the old pork barrel pool up in Ashburnham. 
You i^ee I dropped the fly " 

"Let up, Fred, let up. You have got 
sins enouojh without tellino: fish stories." 

"Well, I can prove it by Charlie Bailey." 

"Well, Bailey is good evidence, for he's 
fairly honest for a fisherman, but I will wait 
till he tells me so," said Ike. 

Just then Ike's old birch pole gave a dip 
and away went the line, and out of water 
went a Bass, but he was fast hooked, and 
soon tired, and Les slipped the landing net 
under him and laid him in the bottom of 
the canoe. 

"There Fred," said Ike, "I'll give him 
to you ; take him back to Boston, and tell 
your own story about him." 

"Well I'll be jigged" says Fred, " caught 



24 



a Bass on that old birch pole, a fool for luck ; " 
and Ike grinned. 

''Now you boys have got done quarrel- 
ino'," said Les, "lets 2:0 over to the shore 
and catch a mess of white perch on the fly ; 
they come up just at dusk to feed on the 
white millers that come off the shore at that 
time." 

' ' What yer givin us ? " says Ike. ' ' White 
perch won't rise to the fly, you want to find 
a rocky bottom, and use pond minnows or 
shrinyD for bait. Betcher fifty dollars you 
never caught a white perch in shallow water 
in your life. Come oft\ 

*' Now old man" says Les, " don't get rat- 
tey. Come over to the shanty, get my other 
rod, fling that old tree-trunk overboard, and 
fish like a gentleman." 

"Never caught a fish on a fly in my life," 
Ike replied. "Its taking an unfair advan- 
tao'e of them, as Rowland Rolnnson savs. 
Think of getting a mouthful of feathers when 
you expect a nice miller. Give the fishes a 
show, if they can steal your bait they get 
something to eat, and if they don't, they get 
caught ; either way they get something. Say 
boys, did yer ever read any of Robinson's 



FLY FISHING FOR WHITE PERCH. 25 

books. That chap knows what he is writing 
about. You can hear the leaves rustle, and 
the birds sing, when you read Avhat he writes. 
And they say he is blind now. 

"My, my, my I but it must be cruel for 
a chap like him, to love the woods and fields 
and know how pretty the trees look in the 
spring, and to smell the wild violets and hear 
the fish jump and the birds sing, and know 
that he can't never see 'em any more. But if I 
could see him I think I could make him hap- 
pier, by telling him how he has helped his fel- 
low-men, who love these things, and can't get 
out to see them, by putting down on paper just 
how they all are in words that sound like the 
jingle of the brooks. I would'nt be blind, 
but I would give a good deal to feel that I 
had his gifts. They say the next best thing 
to S'oino^ fishino- , is to read about it. But how 
about that perch fishing? Are you dead 
open on that yarn, Les?" 

"Sure, Ike, sure, come over and try it, 
and you will never insult another Bass, by 
catching him on a fence rail." 

"Well, if Fred will lend me a couple, out 
of that three or four hundred feather con- 
traptions he carries round in his pocket to 



26 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

make folks think he is a fisherman, I don't 
mind. Come on. Betcher he don't get a 
bite, miless its skeeters." 



A little later, and the three emerge from 
the shanty, and Ike has a rod, not a crooked, 
top-heavy birch tree, but an eight-omice 
lancewood with reel and silk line, which he 
handles as if it were made of glass. 

"By jing," he ejaculates, "if I ever get a 
fish on that bulnish, I shall bust it as sure as 
guns." ^ 

" Well you ought to be ashamed of your- 
self if you do, for I saw a four pound Bass 
landed with it , and he fought every inch of 
the line," says Les. " Now don't get rattled 
and thrash around as if you were driving 
pigs with a hickory goad. That rod will lay 
a fly on the water just as lightly as a feather 
would drop, and you can do it, too." 

"All right, old man," replied Ike, "but 
just put Fred where I can't see him, for I 
shall bust the blasted thing over his head if 
he gets in the way. Come on with your 
fishes." 



FLY FISHING FOR WHITE PERCH. 27 

Les sits in the middle to handle the oars, 
Fred in the bows, and Ike in the stern, with 
instructions to keep their lines far apart, and 
the boat is laid up just outside the lily-pads 
which border the shore. 

'' Now Ike," explains Les, "pull ofi" about 
fifteen feet of line and throw it out on the 
water, and then lift the rod over your head 
and throw the fly right off in front of you, 
just as if you were going to snap a whip, 
but do it easy, and pull off a few feet from 
the reel every time it goes out till you have 
all you can handle, but don't snap off the fly 
by being too quick about it." 

Ike soon gets the hang of the motion and 
Les slowly puts the boat along with easy 
strokes and frequent pauses, until a smoth- 
ered ejaculation of "First fish" from Fred 
attracts their attention and he is observed to 
be reeling in a fish which seems to pull 
pretty hard, and he lifts out a sun fish, which 
is o'reeted with roars of lausiiter from the 
other two, and smothered ejaculations from 
Fred. 

"There Les," says Ike, " I told you Fred 
couldn't catch anything but roaches. He is 



28 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

no good, let him walk ashore and take a 
nap." 

Just then Ike who has let his fly drift for 
a moment, is disturbed by a click of his reel 
which begins to run before his awkward fing- 
ers catch the spool, and he yanks a little 
perch into the boat. 

"Hold on! hold on!" says Les, "don't 
yank 'em so. If that had been a good fish 
you would have broken the tip. You make 
me think of a chap that came down here 
with Bates this summer and camped over on 
the little island. You remember him, Fred, 
you were with Bates while he was here. I 
mean Dr. Brett. Well, Bates took him over 
to Boot Pond to fish, because this pond was 
"working" and the fish would not bite. 
They came down in style, had a team with 
them, and Bates' light canoe. They would 
put the boat in the wagon and drive all over 
the country, fishing where they wanted to. 
I went with them several times. Brett was a 
mighty good fellow to be out with, lots of fun 
in him, and took things as they came. Well 
Bates told me they were fishing way up in 
the toe of the Boot, and the perch were bit- 
ing so fast that the bait was gobbled before 



FLY FISHING FOR AVHITE PERCH. 29 

it was down long enough for Bass to see it, 
and Doc. was twitchino^ them. He had o-ood 
tackle, a fine reel, and a pretty fair split 
bamboo rod, for they came for Bass, and 
Bates believes in giving the fish a show, and 
getting all the fmi he can out of it. Says the 
fish bite too fast to give him what fun he wants 
without wastino- them. Well the first thino- 
Doc. knew, he stiftpoled a little Bass right 
into the canoe." 

" ' See here Doc.,' Bates says, 'I thought 
you came down here to give the Bass a try, 
and you don't give them a chance to try. I 
have my opinion of a man who would lose 
a hundred dollars worth of practice, spend 
twenty-five more for canned chicken and 
other grub that no sensible man ought to 
expect in camp, and the first Bass he gets he 
stiff*poles him into the boat; you ought to 
have a dose of your OAvn medicine.' And 
Bates never lets him forget it either, for he 
socks it into him every time he meets him, 
and the only reply the doctor makes is , ^ I 
believe in getting there, whether its fishing 
or physicking, and don't mind which method 
I practise either.' 



30 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

"And what does that impudent Bates do, 
but throw in right where Doc. hooked the 
Bass and catches on to a big pickerel that 
weighed 3f pounds and landed him with a 
No. 3 hook tied on single gut. Ginger blue ! 
I would give a quarter to have been there 
and seen the fun. There is more fun in 
catching one good fish, with light tackle like 
that, than there is in yanking out a ton with 
an old birch tree. Then he tells the doctor 
he did it to show him how." 

While the storv was beino- told and the 
laugh going round, the flies were out again, 
and soon Ike had another strike from a big 
white perch, struck him right, played him in 
good style and brought him into the boat in 
good shape. This was several times repeated, 
but poor Fred never caught another fish, and 
Ike broke out with. 

" Say Les., I told you Fred would get no 
bites but ' skeeter bites,' see him whack 'em." 

"Confound the blasted mosquitos," says 
Fred, "I can stand it not to catch any fish — 

"Yes, you're used to that," says Ike. — 

" Shut up, I've got the floor," retorts Fred, 
"but hanged if I want to be chewed up by 



FLY FISHING FOR WHITE PERCH. 31 

mosquitoes. Talking about Bates, he is a 
pretty good sort of a fellow, but he roasts me 
worse than Ike does ; every time I get a let- 
ter from him he socks it to me with his boot- 
heels and I expect any time to have him mop 
the floor with me." 

But the dark had come, and the fish had 
stopped biting, and the boat was pulled out 
in the open waters of the lake, away from 
the hordes of hungry insects which flew about 
next the shores. Here the three friends 
lounged away the hours before bed-time in 
gentle converse best relished by fishermen. 

As they pulled upon shore, Les says. 
*'Now Ike, what do you say to white perch 
fishing with a fly ?" " Well Les," he replied 
** when I want fun I shall use a fly, but when 
Fred David comes to see me and I have to 
feed him, I shall stick to the fattest minnows 
I can get. Its quicker. But you bet I have 
a rod just like this, as soon as I get to the 
city." 

The next time Ike went to the village, he 
found a package at the express oflSce, which 
contained a nice rod, sent him by his friend 
Fred, who knew that Ike's jokes on him 



32 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

were friendly pats, and hence laid up no ill 
feeling. 



Why do I spell Bass, with a capital letter? Because 
he is the king of fish and kings ahvays have their 
names capitalized. — The Author. 



GOOSE SHOOTING 
AT PLYMOUTH. 



GOOSE SHOOTING AT PLYMOUTH. 




'p/ HEN I was a boy — how long that 
^ seems, and it is not many years 
ago, yet what changes have been 
made since then — when I was a boy, I lived 
on a hill, a portion of a ridge, which divided 
the shores of Massachusetts Bay from a 
string of inland ponds, and it was a usual 
sight late in the fall to see flocks of geese 
flying over from the turbulent waters of the 
bay to the quiet haven of the fresh waters, 
and often within gunshot. 

The first *'honk" of the leader of the V- 
shaped skein brought the farmer from his 
barn, and the shoemaker from his last. The 
old gun, loaded with buck shot, had long 
been standing behind the door or hung upon 
the wall, ready for just such an occasion, and 
the progress of the flock could be noted by 
the fusilade which often followed it across 
the town. Sometimes after a shot, one was 
observed to throw up his wings and fall in a 



36 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

confused mass to the earth ; or leave his 
place m the procession, and lag behind, till 
with failing wing, he would glide toward 
the ground where he would soon l)e marked 
down in some field, or drop into the waters 
of a flooded meadow which bordered the 
river. In either case he was generally a 
*< gone goose," for a raft or boat was usually 
hidden somewhere in the bushes alons; the 
shore, and it was not long before he received 
his '^coitj) de grace,'' perhaps at the hands of 
some farmer lad with an old musket, a relic 
of the Civil War, then not long ended. 

Even when the persecuted birds reached 
the ponds their trials were not over, for the 
shores of this retreat, which they sought for 
a rest from the buftetting waves, and to 
quench their thirst, were lioed with *' stands" 
behind which were more guns, and in front 
added dangers, in the shape of wooden and 
live decoys, alluring devices to attract them 
within gun shot. 

1 used to think that the live decoys seemed 
to be like some people I knew, anxious to 
get their mates into trouble, at least they 
would IionJc and flutter their wings and swim 



GOOSE SHOOTING AT PLYMOUTH. 37 

back and forth to wile their wild relatives 
nearer to the masked batteries. 

But that day is gone, and now they fly 
along the shore, or the few flocks that pass 
over, fly far beyond gunshot on their way to 
more distant ponds, for the places that knew 
them once, know them no more, and the 
blinds, cunningly hidden by interwoven pine 
and cedar branches, are replaced by the 
noisy pufl* of escaping steam, and the more 
subdued thud of the mighty pumps, which 
send the water through miles of pipe to 
thirsty bipeds of another genus in the towns 
which lie in the valleys below. 

During the late autumn days which I 
passed in my tent on the shores of one of 
the largest of the numerous lakes which 
fleck the bosom of Plymouth with silvery 
dots, I seemed to live over again the days 
of old, when I lay in the blind, and eagerly 
watched the curious flock which swept to 
and fro, now approaching a little, as if to 
gratify an insatiable curiosity, and anon re- 
ceding, as the instinctive cautiousness of the 
bird caused it to flee from the merest sem- 
blance of danger. 



38 LAKE. FIELD AND FOKEST. 

By the kindness of Mr. C. C. Wood, the 
manaofer of the Plymouth Rock Trout Hatch- 
ery, I was enabled to choose my ground to 
pitch my tent wherever I would, on the long 
easterly shore of Billington Sea. where he 
and his brother, the genial Deputy Collector 
of Customs of this old seaport, control many 
acres of woods, protecting the entire side 
of the pond. 

My tent was pitched on the side of a hill, 
in the midst of the woods, protected on 
three sides from the winds and storms, and 
with a view toward the west, which com- 
manded the whole expanse of the lake, and 
sti'etching away to the crest of the wooded 
hills which divide this town from those to 
the west. 

Just to my right was a long px^int forming 
one side of a little bay. on the exti'emity of 
which was a long row of plain board fencing, 
wMch in the season is covered with boughs 
of evergreen trees, and which, when ap- 
proached from the water-side, etfettually 
masked everything behind it from view. 

My companion and camp-mate was a 
young artist, S. B. Duffield by name, and I 
want no better one, and any camper knows 



GOOSE SHOOTING AT PLYMOUTH. 39 

that tent life will bring out all the cussedness 
in a man's nature, but he was always ready 
and willing, always pleasant, knew how to 
talk and joke, and a more rare quality still, 
knew how to keep his mouth shut, on occa- 
sion. 

This point was a favorite resort of ours, 
and I miss my guess, if the winter's exhibi- 
tions do not show portions of this beautiful 
spot immortalized in color on canvas. 

Here we would paddle in our canoe, and 
lying beneath the grateful shade of the over- 
hanging trees, drink in the beauties of the 
glorious and peaceful scene spread out be- 
fore us. 

Let us jump along to the days when the 
leaves have begun to fall, and the lowery 
skies and piercing winds give token of the 
coming of wintry snows and cold. The 
house is peopled with sturdy men clad in 
corduroy and canvas, and the racks are 
filled with heavy 10 guage guns, and the 
talk is of powder charges and the merits of 
chilled shot or smokeless powder. Outside, 
about the blinds, are coops of ducks and 
geese, while anchored on the water beyond 
are groups of wooden decoys. An easterly 



40 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

wind has been blowing heavily for two days, 
and it has just shifted to southwest. 

Geese do not fly in a nasty easterly gale 
and the flocks that came up from the north 
just ahead of it, are lying outside in the 
salt water, waiting for a change. It is a 
pretty sure sign of bad weather when a 
bis: flioiit of ofeese is on, but those which 
pitch into the bays will generally stay there, 
until there is a change, in spite of the buflet- 
ing they get from the turbulent waves. 

But when the change comes, ofi" they go, 
and it is then, when tired and thirsty, they 
drop into the ponds, that our friends get in 
their work. 

Soon a ** honk" is heard from outside, and 
one or more of the gunners go out and loose 
the * ' flyers " who circle out over the pond 
and back to the shore in front of the blind. 
A wild volley of hoarse cries goes up from 
the other geese stationed on the shore, and 
the flying string of wild birds, attracted by 
the decoys, circles back and shows signs of 
stopping for a little chat with these, appar- 
ently, earlier arrivals. 

But now, from other portions of the pond, 
goes up the call, for there are other blinds 



GOOSE SHOOTING AT PLYMOUTH. 41 

on the southerly shore, and even on the 
island that occupies the centre of this sheet 
of water. 

But there is a good strain of decoy birds 
at Wood's Point, of the real Canada Goose, 
bred up from wild birds and domesticated 
for generations, and they get their share of 
the birds. 

<'Here they come," says the watcher. 
*' they're down," and sure enough the 'wild 
birds are in the water, and headed by an old 
gander, are slowly swimming in toward the 
blind. But they are not captured yet. 
The old gander has evidently been there be- 
fore, perhaps "many a time," and he is cau- 
tious. Slowly he swims back and forth, 
sometimes beating back the too eager young- 
sters who would swim directly to their mis- 
guiding brethren in the shoal water. 

Now is the critical period, and woe betide 
the unlucky tenderfoot, who in his eagerness 
to watch the oncoming birds, incautiously 
allows his head to rise a bit too high or raps 
the muzzle of his gun on the boards of the 
blind. If the birds are thereby frightened 
away, he is lucky if he gets off without a rap 
on the head from some quick-tempered 



42 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

gunner, or ducked in the chilly water and 
hustled off by the disappointed crowd. 

But we have no novices here, the men are 
all at their chosen stations, and the decoys 
are sending out their most mellifluous and 
coaxing tones. ' * Honk-honk-o-o-onk" cry 
the decoys, ''come up here and get some 
grub. Here is a nice bed of duck weed, and 
there are lots of nice snails to give it a relish : 
come up." 

"Honk-o-honk," says the leading visitor. 
"I don't know about it. I don't like the 
looks of those bushes behind there. Seems 
to me, I got hurt by something from a place 
like that, last year, and almost frightened to 
death by the big noise that came from it." 

'*0h ! don't be such a coward, come on !" 
Nearer and nearer draws the bunch of birds 
and wilder and more urgent is the call of the 
decoys, till they come in range, when ''give 
it to 'em," and a volley of fire, smoke and 
hurtling lead goes out from the portholes, 
and then upon his feet goes every man, and 
another volley crashes into the now fright- 
ened and wildly fleeing lairds, who are hurry- 
ing away at the top of their speed. 



GOOSE SHOOTING AT PLYMOUTH. 43 

The dead birds are picked up, the cripples 
killed or captured to be used in improving 
the strain of the flock of decoys, and the 
blind once more settles down to its former 
comparative quiet. 

But the day of goose-shooting in this sec- 
tion of the country is passing away. In 
spite of protective laws, the birds are getting 
scarcer every year. The advance of civiliza- 
tion is peopling the shores of our ponds with 
houses, and the demands of the waterworks 
are setting up disturbances that are gradually 
driving away the game from our shores. 
Some day, we will be sitting by the fire, with 
our oTandchild on our knee, tellingr him of 
sights and exploits, which he will never see, 
unless he goes to those portions of the 
country, not yet contaminated by the 
accursed hustle for greed of gain, and the too 
rapidly increasing communistic huddling of 
our people into manufacturing towns, about 
the streams and lakes, to the desolation and 
desertion of the farming districts. The 
home-loving, law-abiding, and contented 
tiller of the soil who once laid in these blinds, 
or shot over the adjacent fields, will have 
given way to the gamin, and the sparrow 



44 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

shooting Italian, and will gradually lose him- 
self in the ciowd, or like the birds wend his 
way to more civilized districts, where the air 
is not befouled by sewer gas and factory 
stenches. 



PERCH FISHING. 




PERCH FISHING. 



E was just a boy, (plain boy,) freckle- 
faced, red-headed, a trifle uncouth, 
but not by any means awkward, ex- 
cept when he was in a strange house. 

My first sight of him was as he sat on the 
stringer of the bridge, over the river, 
dangling a line in the water, and occasionally 
pulling up a bull pout, which he slung behind 
him on the planks. 

Leaning on the rail was a 12 guage gun 
with a brace of woodcock hanging on the 
guard. 

' ' Changed off" from shooting and gone to 
fishing?" queried I. 

*'Yep, didn't have much luck shootin', 
and I wanted some thin' for breakfast, so I 
thought I'd ketch a few hornpouts." 

This was the beginning of as much of a 
companionship as will exist between a man 
of forty and a boy of sixteen, and many 



48 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

were the trips we took that fall and winter 
for partridge, quail and rabbits. 

He was a veritable vagabond, so far as 
love for roaming around the woods was 
concerned, and I soon found that he was a 
mine of knowledge of the manners and ways 
of the wearers of fur, fin and feather. 

He had the run of my library during the 
winter, and while he passed by story books 
in disdain, he spent long hours on stormy 
days over the volumes relating to Natural 
History and field sports. 

One day in May he trotted his pony up 
beside me as I was going home to tea and 
called out, 

*'Say, uncle Mat, les' go fishing.' Got 
all done plantin', and its going to be showery 
tomorrer. Les' go up to the pond and ketch 
a mess of perch ; may get a pick'rel. Come 
on, will yer." 

"Why Bob," I said, "we have no boat, 
and there's no place at the pond to fish off 
the shore." 

"Got a boat, all right, Curtis and Thayer 
had my canoe up there last week, after 
pick'rel, and I told 'em to leave it in the 
ice house. Come on. Curtis sot a old he 



PERCH FISHING. 49 

one, weighed most six pound ; mebbe we'll 
get one. We'll get some perch anyhow." 

*'A11 right," said I, ''call around about 
daylight and I'll be ready." 

The boy was on hand, at daylight, and we 
were soon in his old jump-seat buggy, with 
bait, rods, and lunch stowed under the seat, 
bound for the pond. 

The fresh morning air, redolent of blossom 
and leaf, was like a tonic to his boyish spirits 
and he kept up a string of small talk all the 
way to where we were to leave the team, in 
a friendly stable not far from the shore. 

"Say, boss, did you ever go troutin'?" 
Bob often gets irreverent, and calls me boss, 
especially when he is happy. 

" Go trouting, yes ; why?" 

' ' Well , I went up to New Hampshire last 
year, up to Uncle Bill's, and on the train 
were two dudes, with fancy fish poles, and 
baskets to put fish in, and pocket-books full 
of hooks, all trimmed up with feathers. 
Them fish poles were dandies though. So, 
when I got there, I told Uncle Bill about 
it, and he said they were goin' troutin' ; that 
they used them feather fixins instead of 
worms, and that they called 'em flies. Well, 



50 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

I thougrht if there was so much fun in ketchin' 
trout es that, I must try it, and Uncle Bill 
put me onto a good brook, and I had fun 
alive for about two hours. But I used worms 
for bait, and I cut a pole m the woods. 
They were little things, but they fought like 
a sucker. Did you ever see them flies ?" 

*' O, 3^es, often, and there is just as much 
diff'erence in catching fish with a fly instead 
of a worm, as there is between killing a bird 
on the wino^ instead of sittino- still." 

*' Well, by gum, I can get shots enough at 
birds on the wing, without potting them, 
and have more fun out of it. But I dunno, 
if I was a bird, I would as 'lieves be shot 
dead on a limb, as to be scairt most to death 
on the wing. But 'bout them trout, I got 
awful sick of 'em, after I had 'bout a dozen 
messes." 

** Well, Bob, to be honest, I would rather 
have a nice perch, caught out of cool, clear 
water, than to have the best trout that I ever 
saw. It is mostly because it is the fashion 
to praise the flavor of the trout, and to 
decry the value of other fish for food, but 
there is no fish that swims that so palls on 



PERCH FISHING. 51 

the appetite as those same trout, or any other 
of the sahnon family." 

''There is a great difference, however, in 
the flavor of perch. They are the finest, 
when they are full of spawn, but I think a 
man is pretty mean, who will catch fish when 
they are breeding. Again perch, caught 
out of muddy ponds and rivers are not as 
nice flavored as those out of nice, cold, clear 
water ; in fact no fish is." 

"Say," says Bob, "you know I borrowed 
those pages you cut out of Forest and Stream, 
last winter, and read those stories that Fred 
Mather wrote about the fellers he'd fished 
with. Golly, that chap knows what he's 
talkino^ al^out. But I shouldn't think he'd 
had time to do anything but go fishing, if 
he's fished with all those chaps. He's one of 
those dude fishermen, that want to break 
your head for calling his rod a fish pole ; 
and he talks about ' coachmen,' 'hackles' and 
'professors' and calls worms 'barn yard 
hackles,' but he can tell a story in good shape. 
Say didn't I laugh over that letter he wrote 
you about boys killing birds ; he's a dandy. 

"What was that, Bob? I have so many 



52 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

letters from him that I do not remember the 
one you speak of." 

*'Hold on, boss, I cut it out of the paper 
where you printed it, and I carry it in my 
pocket. Here 'tis." 

Brooklyn, N. Y., Aug. 23, 1897. 
My dear Bates : 

I have yours of 18th in reference to in- 
sectivorous birds being killed as game, on 
account of the benefit to agriculture rendered 
by them, and the danger of their being 
exterminated, or driven from the settled 
portions of the country. In my opinion, 
nothing will save our birds from slaughter. 
You may educate all the adult sportsmen, 
gunners, et al., to spare certain birds but you 
can't educate that savage whom we call a boy. 
Give him a gun and he only wants to see 
something to kill ; that's what he is out for, 
and as for expecting him to pass a bird as big 
as a meadow lark, or a "high hole" you might 
as well save your breath. It is boys, boys, 
boys, who kill off the insectivorous birds, 
robins, thrushes and others which are not 
game, and as a boy I did more than my share 
of it. In one of my sketches of early life, 
now running in Forest and Stream, I relate 
the killing of a "yellow bird" at ten paces 
while it was feeding on a thistle top, and 
how I exulted at my prowess and then 



PERCH FISHING. 53 

suggest that if some kind-hearted man had 
massaged me with his boot it would have 
taught me that life should be taken with due 
care and judgment, and that a boy should 
not have a gun until he is 90 years old and 
then his o-randfather should advise him to 
go forth and kill every living thing he sees. 
That would protect much game. Few men 
are fit to be trusted with a gun, but a boy 
should never have one. 

Cordially yours, 

Fred Mather. 

*' Yes, Bob, and there is a great deal more 
in those lines than you see now, but you will 
understand better when you get older. Major 
Mather is best known as a fisherman and is 
a noted fish-culturist, but he has not passed 
sixty-five years, without getting a grasp on 
nature, that few get, who do not, as he does, 
pass many days in the woods. That letter 
has a big moral and it applies not only to the 
gun but to the rod ; and not only to trout, 
but to perch. I wish every man, who has a 
boy, could read that." 

''Yes I spose so,*' replied Bob *'and he 
says perch will bite at a fly, and its good fun 
if you have a light rod. I guess that's so, 
for I had lots more fun ketchin' that big 



54 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

pick'rel with your little pole, that you lent 
me last fall, than I used to with a big one 
that I cut in the woods, but I dunno what the 
fish think about it. I guess I druther be 
yanked out and have it over if I was a fish." 

"Well, Bob, we seldom think now how 
the fish and birds feel about it. But here we 
are at the pond, and here is your canoe. 
Now where shall we fish ?" 

"Well, I guess we'd better go out there 
ofi" the point ; there is some deep water just 
outside those lily pads, and there's lots of 
perch there, and p'raps I can get a pick'rel 
out of the weeds. Golly, I'd like to see you 
get a big pick'rel on that little pole of yours, 
it don't look bigger'n a weed. Say, what 
are you goin' to do with that other pole ?" 

"Well, Bob, that rod is for you, but I 
don't want to hear you call it a fish pole, and 
I want to teach you not to * yank'em out ; ' 
for I am going to take you with me some 
time, and let you catch a Black Bass, and you 
have got to learn to play a fish, before you 
can land one of those fellows." 

"Now that rod did not cost much, and it 
will break if you yank too hard, I would not 
risk it on a big bass, but it will do to learn on. 



PERCH FISHING. 55 

Here is a reel and a braided silk line, and 
these hooks are tied on gut snells. You 
would better commence to fish right now, and 
when you get after more gamey fish, you will 
find it second nature." 

" Say Uncle Mat, you're a brick. Say, 
I'm one of those dude fishermen now. Say, 
if anybody says j^ou're not all right. I — I'll 
get him out in this canoe and tip him over." 

' ' Well Bob, see who'll get the first perch." 

Just off the shore, where the water from 
the inlet, came around on its way to the 
lower end of the pond, we threw over the 
anchor and dropped our hooks, baited with 
earth worms, and then laid back and waited. 

Am I lazy? AVell perhaps, but I love 
(occasionally) to sit in the end of a boat, 
floatino^ in the still waters, and watch the 
clouds roll by, the leaves tremble in the 
breeze and the ripples playing tag on the 
shallows. Every one seems to have a strain 
of wild blood in his veins, a heritage of his 
primeval ancestors ; and when these wild 
corpuscles come on top, he is not contented 
till he hies himself to the woodland and plays 
lazy till the fit is off and he sighs for the 
hurly-burly of civilization. 



56 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

I love to hold the butt of a little fly-rod 
and cast the pretty delusions of hook and 
gaudy feather, taking care to drop the flies 
lightly as the real insect would dip his feet 
in the water and delude the poor fish into 
thinking that he has a toothsome morsel 
for his appetite. I love to feel the thrill, 
that telegraphs itself along the braided line 
and liml^er rod to the hand, when the trout 
or bass seizes the line and darts off* with his 
prey only to find himself a victim of mis- 
placed confidence and fastened to a bending, 
springing rod which with every jerk, forces 
the cruel barb deeper into his jaw. I love to 
see the lordly bass leap from the water and 
shake the line, fastened to his lip, with a grim 
exhibition of anger, which culminates in the 
wild rush for liberty, only to finally lay his 
form in the landing net, while the wild blood 
rushes through my veins in the cruel exulta- 
tion of mastery by skill and science over the 
wilder animal before me and I often wish, 
after his form lies in the bottom of the canoe, 
that he was back in the water in the glory of 
health and activity. 

But I also love to lie quietly in the seat 
and watch the bobbing float and almost wish 



PERCH FISHING. 57 

that the fish had not pulled it under to dis- 
turb my reveries in the calm still surround- 
ings of water and wood. Am I lazy? Well 
I guess so. But there are others. 

Bob interrupted my soliloquy, with a good 
fat perch, which he took in over the side and 
then plunged into the fish bag which hung in 
the water. 

*' Say, it's lots more fun to ketch fish with 
this rod than it is with a birch pole. Golly, 
how that perch pulled. When do these fel- 
lows spawn?" 

"They lay their eggs in the spring, about 
the time the herring run. The time varies 
with the locality, say from April to May, 
when the temperature of the water gets to 
about 50 to 55 degrees. Did you never see 
the strings of eggs hanging on the bushes 
when the water fell after the spring 
freshet?" 

*' Well," says Bob, *'I have seen them, but 
I never knew what they were before. I 
pulled a lot off the button bushes last 
spring and dropped them in the water 'cause 
I thought they were fish eggs and it was a 
pity to have them dry up." 

Just then the fish commenced to bite and 



58 LAKE, FIELD AND FOKEST. 

the steady stream of fish coming in over the 
side interrupted the conversation, till with a 
sigh, Bob broke out with : 

** Well, I spose we better quit, we have all 
we can use, and I think it is mighty hoggish 
to ketch fish to throw them away. I have 
seen fellers pull in a big lot of fish, over a 
hundred, and tell what a lot they got, and 
then throw them into the hen yard, or leave 
them on the shore. That's what your friend 
George Shields calls a ' fish hog.' Say, he 
don't do a thing to them fish hogs, in that 
book of his." 

"Which book, Bob? He has written a 
good many." 

"O that magazine you have every month. 
*Eecreation,' he calls it. He everlastingly 
soaks it to the chaps what pulls in more fish 
than he thinks is their share. But we might 
as well 0*0 home now." 

"Yes, Bob, you see the best men in the 
country are trying to keep up the supply of 
game and restock old depleted streams and 
covers. Now see that you do not help to 
undo their work." 

And one more pleasant day was marked 
with a white stone on life's calendar. 



A TALE OF 
WINNEPESAUKEE, 



A TALE OF WINNEPESAUKEE. 



fT was a warm summer night. The mist 
hung heavy over the lake, and the 
clouds drooped low over the mountain 
tops. All nature seemed steeped in a rest- 
less heavy fog. Sleep was banished from my 
eyes as I tossed on the clammy sheets. 

Despairing of repose, I left my room and 
wandered along the shore, and finally threw 
myself on a bed of fragrant leaves, beneath 
the boughs of a wide spreading pine. The 
flash of distant lightning lit the horizon, and 
the growling of far ofi" thunder disturbed the 
stillness of the air. Anon the lapping of the 
restless waters of the lake, broke upon the 
ear, and the hoarse cry of the night bird 
grated through the trees. 

The very loneliness of the scene was op- 
pressive, and I lay with pent up breath, 
striving to quell the very beating of my heart 
which throbbed in hurried strokes. 



62 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

Like the twittering of distant birds, dis- 
turbed by a loathsome serpent, came the 
murmurino^s of a voice, oTowins^ strono-er and 
more distinct, till I could hear a voice which 
seemed to say : ' < Shall I tell you a story of 
the early days, when these hills were spotted 
with a crimson stain, and the waters ran red 
with blood? Then listen to the tale of one 
who once cleft these waters with restless 
paddle, and roamed these shores with spear 
and bow. " 

AND THUS HE SPOKE : - 

The afternoon of a beautiful October day 
was drawing to a close ; the sun was already 
sinking behind the mountain-tops and the 
shadows were slowly creeping up the slopes 
of Ossipee. The lake, always beautiful, was 
taking on those delicate darkening tints as 
the shadows. of the forest are thrown upon it 
and with every moment it grew more and 
more beautiful as the shadows deepened. 

On the southern shore, at the head of a 
little bay which indented the border, em- 
bosomed on the sides by the forest which 
stretched away in miles of trackless wilder- 
ness, was a cluster of Indian wigwams, the 



A TALE OF WINNEPESAUKEE. 63 

home of a band of the Winnepesaukees. 
Amonof their tents was one distino-uished from 
the others by its superior size, the emblems 
of authority painted upon its curtains, and 
inside, by the mass of beautiful skins which 
covered the earth. 

It was the home of the old chief, and he 
was now slowly passing from earth to the 
Happy Land of the Beyond. His massive 
frame, only a wreck of its former self, 
stretched upon the bear skins, the hickory 
bow, six feet in length and of a size calcu- 
lated to withstand the efibrts of anything but 
a giant to draw its arrow to the head, told a 
story of the prowess of the owner. By his 
side, with her face buried in her hands and 
her hair dishevelled, crouched a young girl ; 
and without the curtain stood a youth six 
feet four inches tall and a perfect athlete in 
form and figure , gazing off over the bosom of 
the lake before him. At a word from the 
girl the young man entered and stood by 
them. The old Chief, with the damp of death 
already upon his brow, lifted his mighty form 
upon his elbow and spoke, — 

**My son, the race of the chief of the Win- 
nepesaukees is nearly run. No more will he 



64 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

breast the side of the mountam in chase of 
the deer or climb through yonder ravines to 
lay the skin of the bear upon his bed. The 
sun is setting and when it disappears behind 
the top of the mountains the spirit of Win- 
netonka will join his friends upon the other 
side. But just now the spirits of my fore- 
fathers came to me as in the days of my 
youth and they bring sad tidings of our tribe. 
But a short time will you rule over them, for 
the invader will close in about you and the 
remnant of your people will be forced to 
seek another home. You and you only can 
bend the bow and wield the axe of your 
Father and Chief. Many times have they 
been used in mortal combat ; but they have 
never been dishonored. Promise me that 
you will bear them with honor and that you 
will repel the foot of the enemy as long as 
a drop of blood runs in your veins. Even 
now they appear and you will soon be called. 
Away ! and meet them face to face !" He 
fell back and all was over. 

A few miles away, down the lake, a war 
party of Mohawks were approaching, headed 
by their chief, who, accompanied by his son, 
was looking for the beautiful lake of which 



A TALE or WINNEPESAUKEE. 65 

be had so often heard. They broke through 
the bushes at the edge of the forest and 
stood upon the shore. The last expiring 
rays of the setting sun were gilding the 
mountain tops, and, as he gazed upon the 
scene before him he said: — "Beautiful in- 
deed ! " 

Yes, beautiful ; even to the eyes of the 
savage who was so soon to color the water 
with the crimson stain of human blood. 

The next day the two tribes met in 
deadly conflict and the stalwart form of the 
young Winnepesaukee, towering above his 
warriors, was picked out by the Mohawk 
chief as a foe worthy of his prowess ; but he 
had met his fate ; that night his body lay in 
the water of the lake levelled by the axe of 
the young chief. 

Thus were two young men, both in the 
prime of youth, and both models of physi- 
cal strength and suppleness left to combat 
each other. Each seeking the other, the 
one to revenge the death of his father, the 
other to destroy the invader of his home ; 
but they were kept apart until the natives 
of the soil were nearly exterminated. At 
last, in the heat of the fight they met, and 



6Q LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

despite the prowess of his antagonist the 
Mohawk was the victor, and the young chief 
left upon the ground for dead. 

The faithful sister, who had clung to him 
through all misfortune, sought him out and 
found him just in time to hear his last 
words : — 

"The son of Winnetonka has kept his 
promise. The bow of his Father is broken 
and the Winnepesaukee will seek a home 
among the tribes of the North. Promise me, 
my sister, the last of my race, that you will 
revenge my death if ever the opportunity is 
afforded;" and as she promised, his spirit 
passed to its long home. 

Several years passed on ; the maiden, who 
had been captured by the Mohawks, and 
adopted as one of the tri1)e, had grown to a 
beautiful woman. One day as she was cross- 
ing the lake in a canoe a squall arose and 
her streno'th proving insufficient to withstand 
the power of the gale, the craft upset and she 
was thrown into the surging water. But not 
thus was the race of the Winnepesaukees to 
disappear from the land. The young chief, 
who had often admired the girl, was fishing 
within the cove and saw the accident. His 



A TALE OF WINNEPESAUKEE. 67 

arm was strono- enouoh to encounter the 
blast and she soon lay in the bottom of his 
canoe which was being driven toward an 
island near at hand. 

After reaching the shore, the young chief 
stood near with folded arms, gazing at the 
beautiful girl whom he had just rescued from 
the hungry water which seemed now lashing 
itself into a fury at the loss of its victim. 

Many times had he gazed upon her form 
as she mingled with the other maidens of his 
tribe, among whom she was conspicuous 
from her pleasing face and willowy grace. 
This attention had not been unnoticed by the 
young girl and she was in a measure pre- 
pared for the words which at last fell from 
his lips, — 

* 'The sapling rising from the soil in the 
midst of the forest, longs for the light of the 
sun, and as it grows older and more thrifty 
it towers and climbs until it is warmed by 
the welcome rays, when it takes on a new 
life and its leaves grow fresher by the con- 
tact ; so has Lone Wolf longed for the sunny 
face of one who would be his companion. 
His wigwam is empty and he waits for a 
maiden to cheer its gloomy interior, brighten 



b» LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

the firelight and make a happy home-coming 
for its owner. Will ' The West Wind ' share 
my lot?" 

The maiden stood irresolute for a moment 
for she was obliged to confess herself not 
indifferent to the regard of the young chief. 
His kindness to his people ; his just and 
honorable dealings with all who came before 
him ; his acknowledged prowess in the chase 
and in the battle and his manly form and 
beauty had rendered him a hero in the eyes 
of the maidens of his tribe, any of whom 
would have felt flattered if these words had 
been addressed to them. But the mind of 
the girl was torn between the remembrance 
that the slayer of her brother and the con- 
queror of her people stood before her, and 
the regard and admiration in which she held 
him. At last she spoke, — 

*'Lone AVolf is the chief of his tribe, and 
he can command whatsoever he chooses of 
the members thereof. The West Wind 
is the daughter of the Winnepesaukees and 
only one of his band by the sufferance of her 
good adopted mother. Her brother died at 
her feet slain by the hand of the man who 
now seeks to make her his wife. Before he 



A TALE OF WINNEPESAUKEE. 69 

died he made her promise that she would 
revenge his death. Does Lone Wolf sup- 
pose that she has forgotten?" 

' ' I did not know that the West Wind was 
the daughter of Winnetonka," said he, **but 
I cannot see that this fact should stand 
between us. Your brother was a brave man 
and an honorable enemy. He was the slayer 
of my father. He was my opponent on the 
field of battle. We met ; he was vanquished. 
It was his fate or it would not have been. I 
did seek for him and he for me and when we 
met I felt that I had met a man. 

I did seek to avenge a father's death ; but 
the spirit of my father has spoken with me 
and told me that vengeance is wrong. I do 
not understand ; but my father was a wise 
man. He told me to cease war and unite 
all the Indians under one tribe ; but I did 
not know that it was by uniting with another 
tribe. I see that it is well. 

Our tribes have been enemies, let us join 
them by being united ; bury all ill feelings 
beneath a dead past. The lazy black bird 
lays its eggs in the nest of the little yellow 
bird and when hatched the interloper pushes 
out the young of the true owners. 



70 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

Do they then destroy him ? No ! They 
cherish and nourish him as their own until 
he is able to take care of himself. Shall we 
not do as much and forgive those who have 
unknowingly wronged us ? " 

**The Lone Wolf is wise and has spoken 
well, " said the maiden as she lifted her eyes 
to his, ''and she knows that her brother has 
withdrawn his enmity toward the Mohawk, 
for his spirit has ceased to influence her to 
hatred of his slayer and has caused her to 
look upon him with favoring eyes. The 
West Wind is proud to have been chosen by 
Lone Wolf and will be a true wife to him 
and will try to cheer his wigwam. " 

Thus was the last of the Winnepesaukees 
merged into the stronger nation. Many 
years did Lone Wolf live to teach the spirit 
of peace and good will to his people ; until 
when the white man was first stretching 
forth over the country, all was prosperity. 

When at last the old chief lay upon his 
death-bed, he thus prophesied of the future 
of his tribe : ' ' Lone Wolf has followed his 
last trail. No more will he sit in council 
with his tribe, and no more will his canoe 
skim over the waters of the lake. The white 



A TALE or WINNEPESAUKEE. 71 

man's foot has been planted in our midst, 
and it will soon crowd out the red man from 
these scenes ; but the name of the Mohawk 
shall live forever. When we are nearly for- 
gotten, and the boat of the white man shall 
float where now is my canoe, I will ap- 
pear to him and make known my face and he 
shall set its likeness in front, where it can 
gaze over these hills and waters, and shall 
carry my name and face to all w^ho meet 
him. " 

The Winnepesaukee and Mohawk are no 
more ; for long years they have lain beneath 
the sod. The waters of the beautiful lake 
still lie embosomed in the shadows of the 
hills and forest, and the prophecy of the 
chief is fulfilled, for the white man's boat, 
the ' ' Mohawk " now floats upon its bosom 
and bears at its prow the protytype of the 
old chieftain, where it can look over the 
scenes where he once taught the principles of 
peace and happiness. 

The steamer Mohawk, Dr. H. F. Libby, owner, bears 
on its front a bas relief of a Mohawk Indian, cast in 
bronze. 



\ 



HORN-POUT 
FISHING. 



{ 



HORN-POUT FISHING. 



OME time ago I introduced you to boy 
Bob, and some of you were glad to 
meet him. Yes, Bob is a character, 
he's honest, and has never learned much of 
the art of politeness, so he often says things 
about people and things that seem rude, but 
he does not mean it to be so, it's simply that 
he has not yet learned to be a hypocrite, and 
says what he thinks. 

Bob was sitting curled up in the big easy 
chair in my den one day, which he had got 
in the habit of doing, when he was not busy 
elsewhere, and had been reading a copy of 
the Amateur Sportsman. I was busy writing 
and had not noticed that he was looking at 
me, 'till I felt him. 

It's funny how you can feel anyone looking 
at you, I think it must be the result of the 
sixth sense in man. I have often lain hidden 
in the woods and noticed that an animal that 
I was watching intently would get uneasy 



76 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

and finally disappear as if he knew he was 
being watched. I finally looked up and said, 
''Well, Bob, what is it?" 

Bob grinned, as if he appreciated the situ- 
ation and broke out with, ** Say, Uncle Mat, 
you know Gammons?" 

*' What Gammons, the Eastern manager of 
the Boots and Shoes Weekly ? " 

'*0h pshaw, there's only one Gammons. 
I mean Wendall Gammons, has suthin to do 
with this paper I been readin'. You said 
that it made a man fat to be jolly. Well, 
he's jolly, all right, and fat too ; golly, he'd 
roll either way. Told me some stories the 
other day 'bout his goin' fishin' when he was 
a boy. He come along, when I was layin' 
down on the stringer of the dam, w^atchin' 
the frost fish, and he set down and we got to 
talkin' 'bout boys and what they did when he 
was young. He said : 

"That was a good while ago, Bob. I was 
a tender hearted boy in those days, and my 
first fish seemed to be about the biggest that 
ever happened. It was a horn-pout, a horn- 
pout with lively horns, and the fish might 
have weighed half a pound. I might tell 
you. Bob, that it weighed half a pound and 



HOKN-POUT FISHING. 77 

you would believe it. I might tell you it 
weighed two pounds, and you might believe 
that. But, Robert, my boy, always tell the 
truth when you have got anything to say about 
fishing. Fish story liars may get into heaven 
all right, but they are becoming so numerous 
as to become almost obnoxious, and I wouldn't 
for the world have you accuse me of pre- 
varicating. 

*' But about the fish. I landed him with a 
birch stick and a piece of twine, one summer 
morning while fishing in the Shoestring pond 
at South Carver, Mass. I had heard an 
older brother say something about horn-pouts 
and from the painful sensation that I experi- 
enced in removing that fish from the hook, 
I determined at once that it was a horn-pout 
— and it was. 

' ' Horn-pouts are very intelligent. In fact, 
Bob, they are the most intelligent fish that 
ever grew from little eggs — and this one for 
intellio^ence beat them all. To make a lono^ 
story short, I kept that fish and educated it. 
I called him Bill because all fish are fond 
of water, and all the Bills I had ever known 
were not fish. 



78 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

*' When Bill got so he could almost talk, 
people came from miles around to see him. 
Talk about knowing things, that Bill was 
an encyclopedia. He knew more than enough 
and finally like some men, got so much 
knowledge that it killed him. 

' ' There used to be a nice little lady next 
door to where we lived, that I used to think 
a good deal of — and another little lady — not 
quite so nice — in another part of the town, 
that I used to like pretty well. They both 
liked Bill, and both of them imagined that 
they had a cinch upon my afi'ections. Now 
mind you, I don't say Bill got to telling 
tales about me, but somehow those two little 
ladies found out that I was a cruel, heartless 
flirt, and the result was that we all quarrelled. 
I blamed Bill for the whole business. There 
wasn't any funeral, but Bill was dead enough 
when I got through with him. There is such 
a thino: as knowino; too much." 

**I was so tickled over that yarn that I 
went home and wrote it down just as nigh 
the way he said it as I could. He's a funny 
chap, keep a feller laughin' all the time. I'd 
like to go fishin' with Gammons. He'd make 
bully ballast for that canoe o' yourn. Say, 



HORN-POUT FISHING. 79 

'member the first time I saw you ? I was 
down on the bridge, ketchin' horn-pouts." 

"Yes. Why." 

"Well I was thinkin' I'd like a mess, they 
must be gettin' ready to bite pretty quick. 
Don't you wanter go ?" 

"I don't know, Bob, I don't care much 
for that sort of fishing, and the mosquitoes 
are biting pretty well too. I don't care to 
be eaten by mosquitoes for a few muddy horn- 
pouts. They're not worth it." 

*'I don't see why you are so set 'gainst 
horn-pouts. I druther have them than perch, 
and it's just as much fun ketchin' 'em." 

"Well, Bob, you can have your choice, but 
I prefer the perch to any fresh water fish 
that swims. I have eaten pouts caught from 
cold waters in the sandy lands, that were 
pretty good, but those from these muddy 
bottomed rivers are a little too rank for my 
taste." 

"Oh, I know they are not so good as some 
fish, but they smell fishy, and I ha'int been 
fishin' but once since last fall. Come on, 
please do." 

So I went, more to hear what Bob had to 
say about horn-pouts than for any other rea- 



80 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

son, for Bob always discoursed on the family 
affairs of his game. I had plentifully sup- 
plied myself with tobacco and ' ' punkie-dope " 
determined to give the insect pests a tussle 
for their supper. 

We sat ourselves on an old stonewall, that 
ended in the river, threaded a generous worm 
on our hooks and waited. Only the deep 
tones of the frogs and the peeping of noctur- 
nal insects, occasionally broken by the call 
of some farmer belated at his milking, broke 
the stillness and I began to get a little dreamy 
when Bob ejaculated ' ' Dot rot these skeeters, 
lend me that bottle of stuff you put on your 
face, will you ? Say, this makes me think of 
Ed. Curtis. He said the mosquitoes were so 
thick down south during the war that they 
stretched him out pullin' at both ends. Con- 
sidering he's 6 ft. 4 now, he could have let 
himself to Barnum if the rebs hadn't sur- 
rendered for another year or two. Say, did 
you ever see an ole horn-pout with a school 
of young 'uns. Well I found one in a " slew " 
and watched 'em for a week and she acted 
just like a hen with a brood of chickens. 
Gee, I got a whale." 



HORN-POUT FISHING. 81 

Bob had got a little high toned since I got 
Mm a rod, and had eschewed his old birch 
pole, and a good sized pout can pull pretty 
well on a light rod. He pulled in a fish 
which weighed perhaps half a pound. 

' « Gemini, I thought I had a big one on then. 
What a difF' — it makes usins: this little rod. 
Gosh, I got it that time. He stuck his horn 
in me about a foot and he's swallowed the 
hook. Well I got to go up to the fire." 

We had built a fire about fifty feet behind 
us to attract the mosquitoes and furnish 
light to extract the swallowed hooks. By the 
time Bob was back I had a fish and told him 
to take it off", as he had his hand in. 

" Gee," says Bob, " I think the fish had it 
into my hand instead. Its easy to get 'em 
oflf. Take hold of the sides with your fingers, 
right side of his fins, and press the horn on 
his back down with yer hand and squeeze hard. 
Then he can't 'horn' yer. Sometimes he'll 
do it though, spite of it. Wal' I'll try it 
again now. Say, boss, how big a pout did 
you ever see?" 

*' Oh, two pounds and a half is a pretty big 
pout, I never saw many as big as that and 
none as big as that in these waters, but 



82 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

Goode says they sometimes weigh three or 
four pounds. Some of their relatives, the 
catfish, grow to enormous size. The Mis- 
sissippi cat has been taken weighing one 
hundred and fifty pounds." 

** Gee-whiz, I wouldn't like to get one 
o' them fellers on a rod. T'would take a 
clothes line to hold him. By jiminy, what a 
fish. Say, are there yery many that size?" 

**No probably not, for a western man told 
me he fished a week for a bis: one and did 
not get a bite." 

** Wal', are them big fellers good for any 
thing after you get 'em ? 

"He said he had a slice off of one that 
weighed about thirty pounds, and it tasted 
much like rancid wheel grease ; but many 
species of cats are good eating. The blue 
cat of the southern streams is celebrated for 
its delicate fiavor ; but then, you know, 
"there is a difierence in taste," as the old 
woman said when she kissed the cow." 

< ' Oh ! horn-pouts are good eatin' ; they're 
sweet when they're fresh caught and there 
ain't so many l^ones in 'em as there is in a 
perch. Gammons was tellin' 'bout a man in 
Carver, who had a big mouth. When he eat 



HORN-POUT FISHING. 83 

herrin', he'd put 'em in one corner and the 
bones came out of the other side as the meat 
went down his throat, but yer don't need 
that kind of a hopper for pouts. '' Say, did 
you ever "jug" fish. 

Now, of course I had read about ** jugging" 
for cats in the west, but I have found that 
you must not know too much if you want to 
draw Bob out, so I dissembled. 

"I have heard of it. Bob, but never tried 
it, did you?" 

"Yep! I read about it in a book, and 
when my cousin came down from New 
Hampshire, we got to talkin' about it, and 
we thought we would try it. So we got 
about three dozen old bottles, and went up to 
the pond ; and we tied a hook and line on 
the neck of each bottle, and put 'em in the 
boat and rowed over where the water was 
not very deep and put 'em out in a string 
al)out sixty rod long and then set and waited. 
Pretty soon we saw one bob up and • down 
and we rowed over and picked it uj). Well 
we chased it 'bout five minutes before we got 
hold of it, and finally pulled in a perch. 

When we got him in we looked for the 
rest and they was agoin' in all directions. 



84 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

Whew ! didn't we hustle, we didn't have time 
to bait many of 'em over again. So we 
chucked 'em right into the bottom of the boat, 
bottles and all, just as we picked 'em up. 
We got one eel, and he so everlastin'ly 
snarled things up, that it took an hour to un- 
tangle the lines. 

"Wal ! I had one big bottle, that would 
hold 'bout two quarts, and I put a big hook 
and a live minner on that one, and when I 
took 'count of stock, I couldn't hnd that one 
at all. Well, we rowed 'round a long time 
and could not see it. So I come the 'Injun' 
on it, and saw it 'bout a hundred rods oft' 
bobbin' like jehu." 

"Hold on. Bob, what is coming the 'In- 
jun' on it?" 

"Why! don't you know?" queried Bob. 
"When you drop a little thing on the floor 
and can't find it, jest lay down and look all 
'round and you can see it stickin' up. So I 
got my head down next the water and looked 
along the surface. That's what the boys 
call 'looking Injun.' " 

"Well, when we see it, we went over, nnd 
just as I reached out for it, it went down and 
out of sio'ht. Well, I nearlv went over- 



HORN-POUT FISHING. 85 

board, I was so 'stonished. We chased it a 
long time, and I finally got hold of it with an 
oar, and pulled it in, and it had a big pick'rel 
on it, that weighed over two pounds. Most 
of the fish was pouts and perch though. 
Well, it was lots of fun, but a good deal like 
work if your boat is heavy as our'n was." 

All this time that Bob was chatting away, 
we had been pulling in the ungainly crea- 
tures, flattened like a miller's thumb, and 
bearded like a billy-goat. I don't know of a 
homelier fish than a horn-pout. There are 
neither graceful lines nor pretty colors. 
They look as if their ancestors had their 
heads squat down by some enormous thumb 
and finger, and the black back, fading out 
into the white of the belly, is anything but 
pretty. All these things go to show their 
habit. 

How wonderfully does nature provide for 
her children, to protect them from their en- 
emies, and adapt their form to their mode of 
life. Even this homely fish furnishes a beau- 
tiful lesson in evolution. The sluggish, bot- 
tom feeding habit has flattened its head and 
set the mouth low down nearly on a level 
with the belly ; the numerous feelers, or bar- 



86 LAKE, FIELD AND FOKEST. 

bels, furnish means of discovering their food 
in the muddy water ; and the black color of 
the back, of the same hue as the mud on 
which they lie, protects them from the at- 
tacks of their enemies ; while the belly, lying 
next the mud, and not exposed to view, 
has turned to the neutral white or gray. 

"Well," says Bob, "I think the skeeters 
are pretty thick, to make a lecture on Nat- 
ural History real interestin,' I move we ad- 
journ. Gee ! Whiz ! I guess there ain't 
been anybody here this year. Leastwise, 
these skeeters is mighty hungry. Le's git ! " 
and we got. 

On the way home, I told Bob of the ef- 
forts to introduce the catfish into Europe and 
Punch's poetic protest, ending with 

"They say the catfish climbs the trees 
And robs the roosts, and, down the breeze 

Prolongs his catterwaul. 
Ah, leave him in his western flood, 
Where Mississippi churns the mud, 

Don't brina- him here at all !" 



THE FOX WE DID NOT GET. 




Photo, by C. M. Emerson. 

WATCHING A BUN WAY. 



THE FOX WE DID NOT GET. 




IGH up on a ridge, girt al^out with 
forests, which stretch away in silent 
majesty to the place where they 
fade away into the horizon, sits a long, low 
house, known in the vicinity as " The Hunt- 
er's Camp," the resort of a jolly band of 
hunters, who come from the cities miles 
away, to throw oflf the cares of business, and 
breathe in the health-giving air, redolent 
with the odors of spruce and fir. Four miles 
to the nearest store, and only three little 
farm houses in sight across miles of country. 

The owner is the joUiest fellow of the lot, 
and if we were to tell his name, it would be 
recognized at once by many of the sportsmen 
and naturalists who read these columns. 

This is the scene of our story. 

A little party of sportsmen were sitting 
around the fire after supper one night in 
December, and, as usual, were relating 
reminiscences of former hunts, when the 



90 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

talk drifted toward foxes, and fox-hunting, 
by Will coming in from out-doors and say- 
ing : 

"Say boys, it is snowing a little, but I 
don't think it will last long, and if we get 
about an inch on the ground, it will be good 
tracking tomorrow. What do you say to 
getting* up about three o'clock and going over 
to Line Hill? 

There was an expression of assent from 
all, the only objection being from Harry, 
who did not want to get up early. 

'*Do you want to see a fox?" says Will. 

"Of course I do. But what's the use of 
turning out the night before ? " 

"Well, if you want to see a fox, you will 
get over to the stand by daylight, or it will 
be noon before we get one there, and we 
may not then. The scent hes stronger in 
the morning, and you want to get out, l3efore 
the sun dries it up. 

"Yes," says Harry, "but don't the foxes 
wander around in the day time ? " 

"Not much, down here. They generally 
get up on a side hill, soon after daylight, 
and lie down for the day. You see, they 
are out hunting all night, after mice and 



THE FOX WE DID NOT GET. 91 

rabbits, and by daylight they commence to 
lay up for the day." 

"I thought they lived in l)urrows, in the 
ground." 

*'So they do, but except in the breeding- 
season, they do not hole up much, unless 
they are wounded, or are run too hard by 
the dogs." 

"Ned Brown, an old fox hunter out in 
Newton, tells a story," says another of the 
party, "that is a pretty good illustration of 
how a fox will act, when he is hard pressed, 
and how a good dog will hold on to them. 

Herbert Baird and a friend were hunting 
foxes one day, with three dogs, and they 
were on a trail. But, hy and by, two dogs 
came back to them. The missing dog was 
an old favorite, and Baird, knowing his 
habits, said : "That dog is holed up some- 
where with a fox." 

They hunted until night to find him, with 
no success, and the next morning, they 
loaded digging tools into the wagon, and 
went where they lost him. They hunted for 
a long time, and finally met a native, who 
told them that he had seen a burrow that 
looked as if the doo's had been dio^s^ino: at it 



92 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

very lately ; and he conducted them to the 
spot. 

"There," says Bah'd, «*my dog is in 
there." 

'*0, pshaw!" says his friend, "I don't 
believe he ever got into that hole ; why it is 
all stopped up." 

*'Yes," replied Baird, "that dog w^ould 
never give up as long as the fox was ahead 
of him. He has dug in after the fox, the 
other dogs have buried him in, and he can't 
get out. I am going to open the hole any- 
way." 

They started to dig, and continued till 
dark, then procured lanterns, and kept on 
till about 11 o'clock, when they got to the 
end of the burrow, and found the dog and 
the dead fox with him. He had been buried 
for 27 hours, and was lively and well when 
taken out. 

The men had taken a bottle of spirits to 
revive the dog, if they found him exhausted, 
but they needed the restorative more than 
the dog did. 

"That's a pretty big dog story," says 
Will, "but I see no reason to doubt it. A 
good dog will hold onto a trail wonderfully. 



THE FOX WE DID NOT GET. 93 

They will run till they are so completely ex- 
hausted that they will lie down right on the 
tracks. I have known dogs to run so hard 
as to kill themselves." 

" Say," says Harry, "does every fox have 
a burrow of its own ? " 

<*0, no! a bitch fox will throw 3 to 5 
pups, and I have heard of a lot of 23 pups 
heincr taken out of one hole. There are 
often two or three litters together. But we 
must turn in if we are going to get up early." 

"Bur-r-r-r, Ting-g-g-g," went the alarm 
clock next morning, and a frowsy head was 
poked out from under the blankets, and 
yawns from the other room scared the rats 
from their homes under the attic floor of the 
old house. 

'* What time is it?" says Harry. 

*' Half past three, and if we are going to 
start a fox today, we had better be getting 
out of this." 

"Well, I would like to get a fox, but I 
don't want one bad enough to get up in the 
middle of the night to shoot it. Call me 
when breakfast is ready." And a snort and 
then a snore arose from the blankets. 



94 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

Heavens, how that young fellow could 
snore. Starting from a low murmur, as of 
pumpkins rolling out of a tip cart, the sound 
would creep up, rising in volume and increas- 
ing in pitch till the rafters echoed with the 
sound, and the dogs would whine from their 
kennels in the barn, till a gasp and a snort 
closed the performance, only to rise again 
and flood the air. I pity his wife, if he 
ever gets one. 

The stove clatters, and soon the snappmg 
of the lire fills the kitchen, and Will rolls 
out of the bedroom, with eyes blinking in a 
vain effort to keep open. 

''What's the weather?" 

*' Foggy and not very cold, but the snow 
we had last night is in complete condition 
for tracking." 

Will goes out to interview the weather 
man, and by the time he returns, the cofiee 
is on, and the ham sizzling in the pan. 

*' Well," he says as he comes in, '* if this 
day had been made to order, it could not 
have been better. Where is Harry ? " 

''Snoring; told me to call him when 
breakfast was ready. Guess I'll blow the 
horn." 



THE FOX WE DID NOT GET. 95 

A couple of shells are slipped into one of 
the guns standing in the rack, and with 
stealthy footsteps, a form glides into the 
other room, where a i;onfused heap of 
blankets, alone indicates the sleeping form. 
A window is quietly raised and **bang, 
bang," the air shakes with the concussion. 

'*Hi, there, there's a big fox going up 
over the hill by you like blazes, go for him." 

*'Wha', wha', what's the matter," as a 
dishevelled head and frightened eyes sur- 
mounting a thinly clad form appears in the 
bed. 

** Get up there, the foxes will eat the boots 
off your feet if you don't move round faster. 
Get up there! Get up!" 



An hour later, three forms, clad in shoot- 
ing jackets and carrying guns, tramp over 
the light snow, which covers the ground, and 
a dog cavorting in frisky anticipation, dances 
ahead of the party, as it plods almost sul- 
lenly along in the semi-darkness of the 
winter's morning. 

"Now," says Will, *'if you fellows will 
get up to the stands on the hill, I will take the 



96 LAKE, FIELD AND FOEEST. 

dog down into the pines, and see what we 
can find. " 

As the solitary hunters, holding their 
places in the twilight of the gathering dawn, 
pace to and fro, or seek a shelter in the lee 
of the nearest tree or pile of rocks, the first 
glow of the rising sun gilds the clouds float- 
ing above the mist which covers the earth, 
and the clarion voice of the awakening cock, 
from a distant farm-yard comes faintly to 
the ear. In the silence, almost deathlike, 
broken only by the sough of the wind among 
the junipers which dot the hill, they wait the 
eager bay of the hound, which will denote 
the starting of the fox, but they wait in vain. 

<*What can be the matter? Why under 
the sun, don't that dog start something?" 
they muse as they closely scan the sides of 
the hill, over which they hope to see the 
ruddy coat of Sir Eeynard, trotting along 
toward a sudden surprise. But not a sound 
of bark or bay disturbs the air. 

From the far distance, on the other side 
of the valley, comes the sound of two hounds 
in full cry, but their quarry is not for us. 
From the other side the hill, the bark of the 
house dog on the highway momentarily 



THE FOX WE DID NOT GET. 97 

attracts the ear of the silent watcher, but it 
is not the music he expects. A shrike 
perches on the top of a neighboring cedar 
and curiously eyes the motionless form, and 
wonders, what kind of a tree that is which 
confronts him. 

''I'd like to have asmoke, if I dared," 
murmurs the gunner, and his hand automati- 
cally searches for the old pipe which has 
cheered many lonely hours ; but it would not 
do, for the keen nostrils of the fox would 
quickly scent the tobacco tainted air, and 
goodby to the wished for shot at the ruddy 
target. 

Two s\^eary hours pass away, and then the 
tall form of Will comes down over the hill. 

''Well, what's the matter?" 

"I don't believe there is a fox on this 
hill," says Will. '*I have been clear round 
it and I can't find a track, let's go down and 
find Harry, and go over in the swamp." 

"Where's the dog?" 

"Lost him down in the hollow, he will 
find us pretty soon. " 

As we walked away through the pines 
toward the swamp, a rustle in the underbrush 
brino's the guns to a ready, but it is only the 



98 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

dog, and we meander down the hillside to 
the road, and cross the track of the dog, 
where he passed a few hours ago. 

Only a few rods farther, beside the road, 
we see the track of a fox imprinted on the 
spotless covering of new fallen snow ; if the 
doof had o'one a little farther he would have 
found it. 

"He-ee-r-e, Here, Here," goes out the cry 
as we follow the track along, and the dog, 
plunging back to us, scents the pungent per- 
fume, and dashes off on the trail. We follow 
along over the ])rook and are puffing up the 
steep side of the bank beyond, wdien '' Ow-w- 
w-ow-ow-ow," rings out from the other side, 
and when we get over we find he has jumped 
the fox and gone off over the next swamp. 

« 'Make for the hill," says Will, "and get 
on your stands as quick as you can. He 
may go over that way." 

And off we go at a quick trot on the back 
track alono: the hos^-back. We find the 
tracks of fox and dog where they cross the 
ridge, and the writer follows them a little 
way to see which way they went, while 
Harry goes on to the big tree at the corner of 
the wall. 



THE FOX WE DID NOT GET. 99 

The tracks lead to the pines, so I turn off 
over a ridge toward the hill, when "bang, 
bang" goes a gun from the stand by the tree, 
not over twenty rods from me. I stop and 
listen, and soon hear the crash qi some an- 
imal as he plunges through the thick l)rush, 
which lines the brook beyond. There is a 
narrow open place at my right, where I shall 
see him if he crosses that way, and sure 
enough a Hash of red emerges from the 
bushes, but he does not mind the two charges 
of No. 1, which are hurled at him, except 
that, if possible, he quickens his pace as he 
plunges behind the trunk of a pine and dis- 
appears. Before I can get there, two re- 
ports from the open pasture beyond, are 
flatly echoed up the wind, as he passes Will, 
who has just come up from the swamp, but 
the fox goes off" unharmed. Six shots, and 
the fox is yet running, and we trail him to 
his burrow near where we started him. He 
did not hole up to die, for we found his 
tracks where he came out, when we passed 
that way about nightfall. 

There were many explanations why we 
each of us did not get that fox, but we all 
came to the conclusion that it was because 



100 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

we did not shoot straight enough to hit him. 

If the truth were told, would not a great 
many fox hunts turn out the same way. 

After supper, Harry says; "Say partner, 
lend me your pipe, I can't find mine. I 
must have lost it. Haven't you got an ex- 
tra one ? I'll buy it of you. Now give me 
some tobacco, mine is all gone. I was most 
broke when I started, and could not get any 
more." 

"Say, Harry you make me think of a 
friend of mine, our local editor, and some- 
thing that happened to him. 

Country editors are noted as big hearted 
men, who are always willing to do their fel- 
low men a favor. One morning last week, 
one of them went to his office at an un- 
usually early hour. He had just loaded his 
pet briar pipe with a charge of the mind- 
soothing weed, when he heard a step on the 
stairs, and a man of Hibernian ancestry, 
slightly inebriated, came in and addressed 
him as follows : 

*'Good morning, Mr. Jones, a fine morn- 
ing it is, and how is your health this morn- 
ing. Will you do me a favor this morning ?" 



THE FOX WE DID NOT GET. 101 

«* Certainly, Pat," was Jones' reply, "I'll 
do you any favor that I am able." 

"Would you spake the good word for my 
friend Murphy, who has just died. They do 
be telling hard stories about him, and it's the 
foine man he was." 

"Surely Pat," rejoined the editor, "I 
would not say a word that would injure him, 
or cause a moment of sorrow to any of his 
family." 

"I belave you, Mr. Jones, I belave you, 
you're a good friend of moine, a dorm good 
feller. Say would you do me another favor, 
would you give me a pull at the pipe, I'm 
dyin' for a smoke." 

The editor reluctantly handed over the de- 
sired article, from which he was just drawing 
those seductive draughts so dear to the 
smoker. 

For a few moments, silence ensued, 
broken only by the intermittent puffs from 
Pat's lips. 

"Say, Mr. Jones, that's a foine poipe, I'll 
give you a quarter for it." 

Mr. Editor, willing to do anything to keep 
his visitor in good humor, answers in the 
affirmative, with a deep sigh at the loss of his 



102 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

pet, and disconsolately sits thinking of the 
discomfort of breaking in a new one ; when 
his visitor breaks out with. 

«*Say, Mr. Jones, (puff) that's a great 
smoke, its a foine poipe, (puff-puff) I'm a 
man of me word, (puff) its a dorm foine 
poipe." 

And he reaches down deep into the reces- 
ses of his pocket and draws out a quarter, 
which he passes to Mr. Jones, who transfers 
it to his own pockets. 

Another silence, which Pat interrupts with. 

"Say Jones, lend me half a dollar to buy a 
pint, I'm dry as a fish." 

"I'm sorry, Pat, but I haven't a cent with 
me, except the quarter you just gave me." 

"All roight, Jones," says Pat, "give me 
that, it'll buy a half pint." 

Exit Pat for the desired drink. 

' ' I have seen fox hunters with as big a 
crust as that," says Will, "but sometimes 
they get their comeuppence. A party were 
out fox hunting on Cape Cod, and as they 
supposed, run a fox into its burrow. 

As it was getting on into the day, they 
gave it up and started for the hotel. After 
they had gone part way back, a portion of 



THE FOX WE DID NOT GET. 103 

the party made some excuse, separated from 
the rest, and made their way back to the 
burrow, with the idea of digging out the fox 
and winning all the laurels. 

They borrowed some tools from' a neigh- 
boring farmhouse, and dug for about four 
hours, and finally pulled out and killed, an 
enormous wharf rat. Discomforted they 
wended their way back to the hotel with the 
understanding that the whole matter should 
be kept quiet. But they forgot to fix the 
farmer and he let the cat out of the bag. 
The town was too small to hold the party 
after that. 



INSECT HUNTING 
IN WINTER. 



INSECT HUNTING IN WINTER. 



\ I /he Sportsman-Naturalist comes in 
^] I lo contact with all phases of life, grave 

■^ and gay, laughter provoking and pa- 
thetic, sometimes pursuing his prey amid the 
burnino' sands in the intense heat of midsum- 
mer, and anon beneath the snow laden 
branches of the forest 'neath the wintry skies. 
Sleeping beneath the green umbrageous foli- 
age of the cool lake shore, bedded with sweet 
and feathery fern, and only a few months 
later, heaping the logs higher on the campfire 
and tightly rolled in blankets, turning to rest 
on beds of browse 'neath the spreading boughs 
of Maine's evergreen spruce and firs, perhaps 
surrounded by snow and ice. 

For fun? Sometimes. For business? 
Much oftener. The editor and the publisher 
call for more copy and fi'esh scenes ; the 
dealer calls for a greater variety of specimens ; 
or driven by desire for recreation, he wanders 
at his own sweet will, but ever turns to the, 



108 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

to him, all absorbing subject of Natural Life, 
at once pleasure and business, omnipresent 
and ever-interesting. 

A bird in the trees, a fish in the waters, a 
stone in the wall, a butterfly on the nodding 
flower stalk, each speaks to him in Circean 
tones, but which bring not destruction but 
instruction. So it happened that one day, 
snow two feet deep, cloudy, cold, raw, signs 
of more snow, etc., we don our toques and 
leggings, strap our snow-shoes to our backs, 
and, with the implements of our puny warfare 
at hand, start for the woods to hunt the fes- 
tive beetle. 

We imagine our readers saying, '«What 
the mischief are they going bug-hunting for 
in a snowstorm ! " But be it known that 
there is not an hour, day or night, during 
the entire year, when the entomologist need 
to rest for want of specimens to collect. 

My companion, and at that time partner, 
was a short, stocky Canadian from Ontario, 
full of life, and enthusiastic in this his fa- 
vorite study, — a true type of that hardy 
people to whom the use of the snow-shoe and 
moccasin is a second nature. 



INSECT HUNTING IN WINTER. 109 

We took train for the old Maiden woods, 
and after alighting and leaving the houses 
behind, strap up, and are soon skimming over 
the frozen surface, making for a grove of 
pines which loom up in the distance. 

The everpresent * ' hoodlum " shouts at us 
as we pass a cross-road, *'0h, luk at the 
gillies with them things on their feet, don't 
they go fine, though? Say, Mister, give us 
a ride ?" But although they might, no doubt 
prove fruitful fields to collect from, it is not 
that kind of bug we are after, and we go on 
to more congenial fields. 

The first dead pine is attacked, and our 
hatchets soon start the bark from the trunk, 
and eager eyes are watching for the little 
creatures as they lie in their cosy nests, hol- 
lowed out of the inner bark, the surface of 
which is furrowed by the hundreds of little 
beetles which infest these trees. 

Our first find is a fine specimen of the 
Ribbed Bark-beetle (^Rhagium lineatum). 
It is from one-half to three-quarters of an 
inch in length, of a yellowish-gray color, 
variegated with black. The head and thorax 
are much narrower than the body, and the 
antennae barely reach the base of the elytra. 



110 LAKE, FIELD AND FOUEST. 

They lie in cosy little cells, between the in- 
ner bark and the wood, in which they trans- 
form from the larval state, and from which 
they bore out in the spring to lay their eggs 
in the crevices of the bark, again to com- 
mence the round of destruction. A large 
number are often found in one tree, and an 
entry in my Field Notes reads, '* April 2, 
Maiden, Mass. Cold and stormy. Over 100 
H. lineatum were found in one dead white 
pine, and twice that number of larvae. " 

The next find is Pytho americanus^ a 
beautiful little beetle, blue above and red be- 
neath, which lives in a similar cell to the last 
mentioned, excepting that the rim of the cell 
lacks the chips which invariably characterize 
the former. 

Well do I remember the first time I found 
this beetle. It was in the woods near my 
old home in Braintree, Mass., and I was as- 
siduously working away at a dead tree, when 
a strange beetle dropped from under a strip 
of bark which I was peeling ofi", and its bright 
colors caught my eye as it fell. Down I 
went on my knees in the snow and dirt to find 
it before it became buried in the debris. I 



INSECT HUNTING IN WINTER. Ill 

believe I took fifteen out of that tree, and got 
logs and piled them up to reach higher. 

Another tree discloses a specimen of the 
rare Alaus my ops, a somewhat larger beetle, 
gray, with two eye-like black spots on the 
top of the thorax. This insect belongs to the 
family of Elaters, or spring beetles, and is 
closely related to the Cucujo or fire-fly of the 
tropics. 

By this time our toes have become numbed 
by the straps of our snow-shoes, which have 
borne too tightly over them, protected only 
by a thin moccasin, and my friend suggested 
that we find some cosy corner where we would 
be sheltered from the wind, and build a fire, 
warm our feet, and have a lunch. I needed 
no urging, for my toes had long warned me 
that they protested against such treatment, 
and we proceeded to carry out the will of the 
majority. 

The lunch was eaten, the fire was warm 
and comfortable, and we lay back, wrapped 
in our warm blanket coats and talk over the 
incidents of the forenoon. 

*'How many beetles have you taken?" 
says Jim. '*I have about two hundred." 

*' You are way ahead of me then, for I 



112 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

have not over fifty, but I have two here that 
I would not swap all the rest for." 

"Well," says Jim, "you remind me of a 
story that my friend Haywood used to tell of 
an old Judge in England, who was an en- 
thusiastic sportsman, but a very poor shot. 
They were at a Pheasant drive on a leased 
shooting down in the Eastern counties, one 
day, and after the drive was over, the Judge 
had but two birds, and one of the party 
asked : 

"How did the Judge shoot?" 

"Oh," says the keeper," he shot beauti- 
fully, but God was very merciful to the birds." 

Jim was too much for me, collecting beet- 
les, but I could do him up on the butterflies. 
He was at it all the time , while I was doing 
more in the way of taking notes and watch- 
ing their operations, than of peeling ofl'bark. 
By the way, a good suggestion to parents 
who want to deter their children from killing 
birds, and yet encourage them to study Nat- 
ural History, would be to make them a pres- 
ent of a pair of -opera glasses and a note 
book, and reward them for good observa- 
tions in the fields. The boys would have 



INSECT HUNTING IN WINTER. 113 

just as much fun, and many birds' lives be 
saved. 

We were now thoroughly warm, and my 
partner challenges me to a race to the next 
grove on a hill about one-quarter of a mile 
distant, to warm ourselves up, and decide 
who shall pay for the supper when we get 
back. 

Away we go, skimming along, until a low 
wall, on a steep side hill, unnoticed in the 
excitement of the race, catches the toe of my 
friend's shoe, and over he goes, head first, 
into the drift beyond, all out of sight but his 
short legs, looking like barbers' poles, with 
their striped stockings and waving snow- 
shoes, decorated with gay ribbons from the 
last costume skating carnival. 

As soon as I can recover from my lit of 
laughter at his mishap, I roll him over, like 
a big mud-turtle, upon his back, for a man 
on snow-shoes has a hard job to get up with- 
out assistance, and as he arises and blows 
the snow from his bushy moustache, he says, 
"No snow down there, crops coming up 
finely, that field won't need ploughing next 
spring." 



114 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

But little mishaps like this do not trouble 
us, and off vi.e go again, until the rapidly 
falling snow and the cold winds fairly 
drive us back to the city, full of renewed 
life and spirits to once more tackle business 
affairs. I paid for that supper. Canada won 
the race. 

Although it may seem incredible to the 
ordinary reader that much pleasure can be 
derived from a tramp in the woods, when the 
snow is deep, and the mercury fast on its 
way towards zero, with, perhaps, the snow 
falling fast around you as you tramp over 
the whitened earth ; still, the entomologist, 
as he glances over these lines, will lie back 
in his chair, and live over the hours which he 
passed in just such circumstances. How 
cold his feet were, as he tramped over the 
snow, with eyes and senses alert to catch 
some favorable spot, and when he has 
stripped the bark from some tree, and found 
a little insect, for which, perhaps, he has 
been searching for a long time to fill some 
vacant spot in his cabinet, how soon are the 
cold feet and the other discomforts of the 
body forgotten. And who would not endure 
these trifling privations, to look at this in- 



INSECT HUNTING IN WINTER. 115 

sect, properly classified and in its place 
among others of its tribe, and on the cold 
winter evenings to sit by the fire and, as we 
examine its beautiful structure, to live over 
those hours. 

While we are enduring privations, or 
working hard to get out of some difficulty, 
we think that the game is hardly worth the 
candle ; but after it is all over, and we sit by 
the fireside thinking and living it all over 
again, we forget the discomforts, and remem- 
ber only the pleasant portions, and deter- 
mine to try it again. 

Sneer at the "bug-hunter" or the "Nat- 
uralist crank," if you will, but he has pleas- 
ures which you wot not of, and these little 
things teach to him grander secrets than all 
the garbled theories of past ages. Or per- 
haps, as he roams the woods, maybe in a 
strange place, as I once did, with his gun 
under his arm, for a shot at some stray rab- 
bit, he is overtaken hj the shades of night in 
a lonely place, and with the only alternative 
to roam the woods all night or build a fire 
and roast a rabbit for supper, and then after 
a smoke for a night cap, can roll himself in 
his ulster, and lie down by the side of the 



116 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

fire, and comfortably covered, can watch the 
firelight and think over the captures of the 
day, and finally drop to sleep as peacefully 
as a child in its mother's arms, to dream of 
loved ones far away, secure in the thought 
that there is nothing there to harm him, as 
he lies in the midst of Dame Nature's works. 
And why not? After all, life is but a 
span, and nothing serious can befall us, and 
it be our fate to there end our mortal days, 
where can we find a more glorious mausoleum, 
than the undying clifts, or a more peaceful 
lullaby than the song of the winds in the 
soughing pines. 



LAKE TROUT 
FISHING. 



LAKE TROUT FISHING. 



J\ I L As I looked up from my desk, 
^ a vision in blue uniform and 
brass buttons, hekl me a yellow envelope. 
* ' Any answer, sir ? " 

There were only five words on the slip en- 
closed, '*Come up to-night, sure." Signed^, 
*' Henry." 

The boy was dismissed, no reply was 
needed, but what did it mean? And I won- 
dered the rest of the day. And I wondered 
till I went to see what it meant. 

My friend Doctor Henry was seated in his 
easy chair, when I entered, and was calmly 
reading his evening paper, and oblivious to 
any undue excitement, that would suggest 
any cause for the telegram. 

*' What's the row, Doc, that you telegraph 
me to come up ? Sick ?" 

** Yes, sick of Boston, I am going up to 



120 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

the lake, Saturday. Come on. If its not 
too late we will get a few lake trout." 

**I would like to, Doc, but I am afraid I 
can't, I must stay and look after business." 

* ' Oh let the business go for a few days and 
come along. You are not so important that 
business wont go without you. Say, my boy, 
who will attend to business when you're dead ? 
Do you expect the world will stop then ?" 

"No, I suppose not, but 'twon't make any 
difference to me then." 

'*Now my boy," says the doctor, '*Man 
that is born of woman is small potatoes, and 
few in a hill. When we die, the hole we 
leave, will be just the size of the cavity left 
in a pail of water, when you pull your finger 
out of it. Come on. No preparation 
needed. I have rods enough at the lake, 
and the steamer will be at the whai-f, waiting 
for us, when the train gets in tomorrow 
night. Will you go?" 

Now man that is born of woman is not 
only small potatoes, but he is weak in the 
knees, when the hour of temptation comes, 
and I hesitated. He who hesitates is lost, 
and I am afraid that I was lost when the 



LAKE TROUT FISHING. 121 

subject was broached. Anyway I went, and 
I stayed till I got my first '' togue.'' 

Now I suppose that some scientific fisher- 
man will put up a kick and say that a 
Winnepesaukee Lake trout is not a '*togue." 
Now let's go into executive session, and 
moralize a little. This fish, closely allied to 
the Salmon and other trout, has as many 
names as a Spanish Grandee. They call 
him J^amaycush in the Great lakes ; Lunge 
on our North-eastern boundaries ; Togue in 
Maine, and various other aliases in other 
places, but when you're calling, call me to 
dinner, and I'll eat him under any name. 
The flesh is pink, and well flavored, though a 
little dry, and needs a generous allowance 
of good, melted butter to help it along. 

In appearance they vary with every water 
they inhabit, and though not as gamy as a 
brook trout, a fish running from three to fif- 
teen pounds will furnish some excitement, if 
he has got any trout blood in him at all. 

The ride from Boston to the lake is long 
and tedious, despite the changing scenery as 
we pass from Massachusetts into New Hamp- 
shire, and *'we had all been there before, 
several times," but picking up an addition to 



122 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

our party at Dover, we finally got there, and 
left the train at Wolf borough. 

The steamer was at the wharf, and we got 
away immediately. I must stop a moment 
to describe the "Mohawk" for she is a beau 
ideal for a gentleman-sportsman's boat. 
About forty feet long, her forward part was 
cased in plate glass, affording protection from 
the weather, while aft of the engine, curtains 
could be pulled down when needed. She 
was fitted with all necessary conveniences, 
and if desired, a party could live on board 
for weeks, as well as in an ocean steamer. 

We were afraid that the weather was get- 
ting pretty warm for the fish, for it was 
toward the last of June, and like all of the 
trout family, this fish likes cool water, and 
as the sun gets higher in the heavens, they 
seek the deeper portions of the lake, so the 
first question was : 

"Say, Cap. have the trout done biting?" 

"No," was the reply, "a party from Alton 
Bay caught a 11-pounder this morning." 

"Well boys," said the Doctor "I guess 
we'll get some then." 

The Doctor's cottage was on the shore of 
Tuftonboro Bay, and just opposite the en- 



LAKE TROUT FISHING. 123 

trance which leads in from the lake. Our 
party was made up of ten persons, three of 
whom were ladies, but as only three bear 
any relation to our story, we will confine our 
attention to them. 

The Doctor was a lithe, active body, with 
muscles like steel trained by years of work 
over the dental chair, and indefatigable in 
pursuit of sport, either with gun or rod, he 
wanted the best of everythinof and he o-ot it. 
He worked hard at his profession and he en- 
joyed his holidays thoroughly, and better 
still, he made his guests enjoy themselves. 
What more could you ask ? 

Uncle Alonzo was an elderly gentleman, 
slipping down the path of life, and hurried 
along by that insidious disease, consumption. 
He needed to be careful, but he dearly loved 
to feel the tug of a good fish on his split bam- 
boo, and he intended to go fishing as long as 
his strength would allow. 

The third party was dubbed *'Bugs" for 
he would leave his work to chase butterflies, 
and always carried a bottle to confine his 
victims. No more need be said, he was no 
better than he ought to be. 



124 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

The day in question now, was the first 
pleasant one following two days of rain. 
The boat had been out, and fish had been 
caught, but no trout. The weather and the 
water was cooler for the rain, and the 
steamer started out with its living freight, 
fully prepared to get trout, or know the 
reason why. 

Let us explain a little. On the after deck 
were fastened tAvo chairs on swivels, for the 
fishermen, and a button was set on the edge 
of the upper deck, which connected the 
sportsmen with the engineer. When the 
fishing grounds were reached, the engine was 
set on the notch, and the boat jogged along 
at the proper rate of speed to spin the bait 
and not dras: it too fast. The hooks were 
baited with alive "red-fin," a heavy sinker 
attached to carry it down into the depths 
where lurked the finny monsters, and we sat 
back and waited for a bite. 

Uncle Lon and Bugs had the seats of 
honor, the two chairs, for the latter was a 
neophyte, and the former was going to show 
him how to do it. The doctor was master 
of ceremonies, and not long did they wait, 
for shortly Doc says : 



LAKE TROUT FISHING. 125 

*« Bugs, you've got a lish on. " 

"Guess not," says Bugs. 

''Guess yes," says Uncle Lon, "confound 
you, a greenhorn for luck." 

And Bugs soon found that he had some- 
thmg to learn, for his line commenced to run 
out, and Doctor touched the button, and 
stopped the engine. 

"Snub him, Bugs." 

"Give him the butt. Bugs." 

"Hold on to him, Bugs, till I get a rope 
round you, he'll have you overboard." 

And it did look as if Bugs had the buck- 
fever and was going over board after the fish. 
This way and that way, starboard and port, 
up to the surface and down toward the bot- 
tom went the frightened fish, but flesh and 
blood could not stand the strain of the little 
bamboo rod, and the weight of the lump of 
lead. Bugs had landed big fish before, and 
though the tactics of this one were a little 
strange to him, he slowly reeled in his line, 
and the long-handled landing net was slipped 
under the exhausted fish, and he came upon 
deck. 

"How much does he weigh?" was the 
universal cry. 



126 LAKE, FIELD AND FOKEST. 

The Doctor deliberately hung him on the 
spring balance, and said : 

*' Six pounds and a half." 

But Bugs saw a peculiar smile on the faces 
of the party, and began to smell a rat. He 
had caught fish before and never saw a fish 
of that size that weio'hed so heavy. 

*'Hold on there. Doc, let me see those 
scales." 

Sure enough there it was 6 J pounds, but 
not satisfied, he lifted the fish off the hook, 
and the scales went back only to the 2f 
mark. That trick did not work that time, 
and the laugh was on the doctor. But one 
man had carried what he thought was a 6- 
pounder back to Boston and thought it had 
shrunk badly in eight hours. However, a 3| 
pound trout was good enough to keep. 

The engine was again started and Bugs 
did the same trick twice more, and nobody 
else caught a fish that day. They all weighed 
within two ounces of the same mark. 

Uncle Lon was very sore, for not only 
had the greenhorn beaten the experienced 
fisherman, but said E. F. had not even had 
a bite. 



LAKE TROUT FISHING. 127 

'»Well, Uncle Lon," says Bags. *'I 
shall have to show you how to catch trout. 
I thought you was a fisherman. I want to 
see that 10-pounder you were tellmg about 
this morning." Which remarks were very 
rude, and were to be thrown down his throat 
the next day. But now, Uncle Lon only 
sadly shook his head and held his peace. 

Next day, we were at it again, but there 
were no strikes for a long time, and we had 
made up our minds that we would get left 
this day, when Bugs jumped to his feet and 
sang out : * ' Stop the boat ! Stop the boat ! !" 

''By ginger," says Doc. "he has another 
one on." 

*'No," replied Bugs. *'I haven't got a 
trout on this time ; but I w ish that half-pound 
weight was ofl*, I'd show you some fun." 

* * What do you mean ? " 

"I mean that I have a bass on here. I 
don't know much about togue, but I know 
when a bass telegraphs me that he's coming, 
I have met him before." 

Sure enough there was a nice one on the 
hook, but the weight hanging to his jaw did 
not allow His Royal Highness to perform any 
of his favorite acrobatic tricks, and he was 



128 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

too firmly hooked to get away, but he man- 
aged to kick up considerable of a muss be- 
fore he was laid in the fishwell. 

The excitement incidental to this, had died 
away, and the fishermen had commenced to 
shift uneasily in their chairs, despite the 
round of fun and jollity that was being ban- 
tered back and forth. Finally the doctor 
said : 

"Say, this is getting monotonous, I'll put 
up a stake, the first man who gets a trout, 
wins this half dollar, and we'll have it en- 
graved with its weight." 

Suddenly Uncle Lon was observed to 
straighten up in his chair, and his reel to 
sing. It was nip and tuck, for the old gen- 
tleman's wind was short, and the fish was 
strong ; twenty feet of line would come in, 
only to be ran out by the struggles of the 
exasperated fish, while the old man would 
stop to get his breath and commence again. 

**Let me play him for you, Uncle Lon," 
says Doc. 

"Not — much, — I'm going — to show — that 
bug-hunter — how to — catch — a fish." 

And he did, for he fought it out and brought 
to net a fine trout weighing 7f pounds. But 



LAKE TROUT FISHING. 129 

it took a solid dose of * ' restorative " to get 
him back so he could talk. 

''There Bugs," says he, ''that's the sort of 
fish we catch, ive don't pull in minnows," and 
the old man was heard to murmur in his sleep 
that night : "Don't catch minnows." 

He got the medal, and it was preserved, 
and often proudly exhibited in a velvet lined 
box, as long as the old man lived. 

It was not long, and that was probably the 
last fish that the old man ever caught. 

Let us hope that in those happy hunting 
grounds, where he now is, that his eyes are 
clear to bait his hook, and that the fish are 
plenty and not minnows, in the ghostly streams 
of the land of the hereafter. Who knows ? 
And it is a question that we would all like 
to have answered. 



THE NATURALIST IN THE 
WHITE MOUNTAINS. 




MT. KEABSABGE. 



THE NATURALIST IN THE WHITE 
MOUNTAINS. 



^^ * OW the next trip you make next 
summer will be to the Crawford 
Notch. Is that all settled? I 
shall be disappointed if you do not come, 
and so will you, for I can show you birds 
galore, and you will be well repaid for the 
trip. Maybe we'll get a bear." 

These were the last words of my friend, J. 
Waldo Nash, artist and naturalist, as I bade 
him goodbye, on the train north, after a very 
pleasant winter's companionship in the city. 
So I went. 

It was my object to study bird life on the 
higher altitudes, and I had for a week been 
gradually approaching North Conway, by 
way of Lake Winnepesaukee and the Ossipee 
Eange. I had never been here before, al- 
though I had been in higher latitudes, and I 
was much interested by what I had seen so 
far in my travels. 



134 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

' < I never knew you to go back on your 
word, old man," greeted me as I stepped off 
the train one night, and Waldo had me by 
the hand. *'If we don't make these old 
mountains howl within the next fortnight, it 
will be because Miss Echo has got drowned." 

** Hold on, now, don't be introducing me 
to any dissolute females. I am a poor weak 
naturalist, and I know more about catching 
hornpouts than I do about your misses. 
I've no use for them." 

"Well," says Waldo, "you will get along 
all right with Miss Echo, for she always 
agrees with you, but you never see her. 
Come on." 

So I found myself ensconsed in a nice 
chamber, in a house by the waters of Kear- 
sarge brook, which carried the waters into 
the Saco, while the mist crowned peaks of 
the Moat Mountains looked into my windows 
in the morning, and called me from my bed 
of ease. 

From those magic portals were seen the 
magnificent pinnacles of Cathedral Rocks and 
the horse and sleigh of White Horse Ledge. 
Never changing, yet ever new ; never end- 
ing, yet ever beautiful, who would not be an 



IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 135 

artist, especially if he be a naturalist, to live 
in the midst of these magnificent monuments 
of nature's handiwork. 

Mt. Kearsarge, or Pequawket, as it is some- 
times called, was our first day's work, and 
we hastened our steps to reach its foot, for 
we knew it was a hard climb before we con- 
quered 3,200 feet of rocks, thrusting their 
heads into the clouds. 

'*Hold on a minute," Waldo says, "let me 
show you something pretty," and he lifts a 
branch of a hemlock growing on a bank by 
the edge of the brook, and there was the 
oven-like nest of the black and white creeper 
hidden in the moss. 

It was loosely constructed of pine needles 
and dead leaves, and was lined with shreds 
of birch bark and horse hair, against which 
reposed the four delicately dotted eggs. The 
green, mossy, fern dressed bank, laved by the 
waters of the brook, and crowned by a gray 
and moss grown fence, formed a picture long 
to be remembered. 

The way led along the course of the brook, 
through the intervale ; and wild strawberries, 
dainty flowers, and above all, the everchang- 
ing scenery beguiled the footsteps to the 



136 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

detriment of speed ; it was almost impossible 
to tear ones eyes away. 

At Sunset Hill, the bridle path began, and 
we were rushing down the slope toward the 
open field, when as I was leaping over a 
patch of low blueberry bushes, to keep my 
feet from getting tangled, and throwing one 
headlong, a little bird flushed from between 
my feet, and was gone, but not so quickly 
that I did not recognize the little Junco, and 
as I had never seen its nest, I stopped in- 
stanter. 

Foro^otten was Mt. Kearsaro^e, fors^otten 
the rapidly passing hours, but I searched for 
a long time, before I discovered it, curiously 
hidden in the bushes. Another of nature's 
gems, set in emerald green, its brown cup of 
fine grass and pine needles, eflectively 
blended with the dry aftermath, concealed it 
till the eye caught the glint of the sun on the 
surface of the five little eggs. It was more 
neatly and compactly built than the creepers 
but no more dainty. 

Kearsarge has features of its own. One is 
the Kearsarge Brook, a sparkling stream of 
water, the source of which is the famous 
Kearsarge Mountains, rising among the clouds 



IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 137 

from many springs ever uniting to form 
larger streams, falling now over precipices, 
forming, as it were, a bridal veil for some 
bride of Old Kearsarge, noAV tumbling over 
rocks and roots in a mad and merry whirl 
and rush, as if each pai-ticle were trying to 
see which would reach the base soonest, then 
flowing quietly along under old and forgotten 
bridges, so quietly that one would hardly 
think that these were the same waters that 
were so boisterous a short time before. Now 
starting up again as if urgent business called 
it along in haste, and anon, pausing in some 
cool and quiet pool where the speckled 
beauties bask and sport. Now flowing along 
under mighty maple trees in whose sombre 
shade the quiet hum of insect life and twitter 
of birds carry one far beyond the toil and 
cares of life. Now emero^ino- ao-ain into the 
sunlight, flowing through pasture and 
meadow, past happy homes, through groves 
where people worn with the cares of a life 
in the city are fast forgetting those cares 
and taking on new life. Lying quietly in 
some smooth and tranquil pond, now tumb- 
ling over some dam or phihinthropically 
turnino^ some wheel, orlidino- alono' over 



138 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

polished ledges ; again running along over 
rounded pebbles, under dark pines, ever 
chano^iuor never found twice alike. Such is 
the beautiful Kearsarge brook and offers 
enjoyment to all, whether they carry a rod 
and line, or an artists' outfit, or whether 
they are out for an hour's rest. A trip up 
this brook and its tributaries offers some of 
the most beautiful scenes ever put on canvas, 
and some of these scenes are very easy to 
reach. One looking up from the mill pond 
above the Chase shops is a fine scene, and a 
few rods farther up is another of a little 
difterent character. 

East of Kearsarge and beginning to rise, as 
it were, out of the brook is Sunset Hill, 
formerly known as Birch Hill , which offers 
some fine views of the surrounding country 
and from which the glories of a mountain 
sunset can be seen perfectly, and here also 
can be seen the Moat Mt., White Horse and 
Cathedral Ledges in bold relief against the 
Western sky, and further north old Wash- 
ington, which, at this distance, is toned down 
into soft and hazy colors. Here one can get 
the smell of the fir balsam and pine, or dream 
in the shade of some mighty oak. And here 



IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 139 

can be seen the bleached and whitened 
skeletons of old forest trees, and picturesque 
old birches from which the former name was 
taken. 

The trip on Kearsarge Mt. can be very 
easily made from Kearsarge village and 
should not be missed by any one. 

The bridle path wound around trees and 
rocks, with numerous openings, whence the 
valley below could be seen, and many were 
the interruptions which lured us from our 
path. Here were the beautiful flowers of 
the Linnea borealis, and at the next turn it 
was some bird which hopped out of the bushes 
and as suddenly flitted out of sight. 

About one-fourth of the way up, we heard 
the sound of falling water, and knowing that 
some of the choicest bits of mountain 
scenery were to be found in the cascades, 
we left the trail and were well repaid for the 
moment's scramble. A series of little falls, 
formed by the descent of the little brook, 
swollen by the rains of the night before, 
here leaped and swirled as they tumbled 
down over the mossy rocks, now disappear- 
ing beneath the fallen boulders, and gurgling, 
struggling and grumbling as they worked 



140 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

their way through hidden channels out, 
once more, into the light of day, when with 
a flash and spatter it plunged over a little 
clifi*, and splashed into a crystal pool below, 
then flowed calmly a little way like liquid 
silver, framed by banks o'erhung with a 
tangled maze of delicate green, a mass of 
mossy, dripping, filmy, feathery fern. 
These cascades did not seem to be well 
known, and they are not easily accessible, 
except by a sharp scramble, but they will 
richly repay for labor expended. 

On these banks, as we climbed over and 
leaped across on the mossy and water-worn 
rocks, we started the Redstart, the Chestnut- 
sided Warbler, the Red-eyed Vireo and the 
Olive-backed Thrush, hiding among the 
bushes and the fern-grown banks. 

We followed the course of the brook until 
we found that it would carry us away from 
our goal, when we turned again toward the 
bridle path. 

We lunched on Prospect Ledge, well 
named, for here is aftbrded a fine prospect of 
this section of the Saco Valley. 

Leaving here, we find bird life growing 
very scant, but see the Junco and White- 



IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 141 

throated Sparrow apparently breeding at a 
height of 2,000 feet. 

Speaking of this latter bird, it is here in 
these mountains that I heard its voice at its 
greatest perfection, at least two more notes 
being added to its song as heard in the low- 
lands. It warbles at intervals during the 
entire day, calling back and forth with its 
companions ; and later on , as I lay in my 
blankets on the slopes of Mount Willey, in 
the darkness of the night, and surrounded by 
the sombre depths of the spruce forest, lit 
only by the glimmering stars, I heard it 
again, like a voice of hope calling from the 
depths of gloomy despair, and enlivening the 
solitude with its cheery notes. And as the 
first rays of the rising sun adorned the east 
he, first of all, lifted up his voice in gladness 
and praise. 

Not for all the world could I, since that 
glorious day, harm one of those little creat- 
ures, or take its nest. I would feel as if I 
had killed or robbed my own brother. 

But I have digressed, both from my path 
and my story. We are now nearly to timber 
line, and soon have passed out where the 
only vegetation is low bushes, a few stunted 



142 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

evergreens, twisted and gnarled by the force 
of the winds which sweep over the summit, 
and the low, creeping mountain cranberry 
(uva wsi), which covers the soil wherever 
any is found to cover the rocks. A few 
more hundred feet and we step upon the tops 
It has been a hard climb, but the view is 
worthy of the labor. 

We can follow the course of the Saco river 
from where it emerges from the Notch until 
it disappears in the distant fields of Maine. 
Below us are the villages spread out in mi- 
nute panorama, the buildings looking like 
toy-houses, and the people indistinguishable 
except by the aid of the glasses. 

To the south, on either side of the valley, 
the two ranges show their length ; to the east 
the hills of Maine are nearly flattened into 
the plain, though near by they are consider- 
able eminences, and the view is unbroken to 
the horizon, with river, lake and field varying 
the picture ; while to the north are the mon- 
archs of the range, too numerous to mention, 
culminated by Washington, now for weeks 
cloud-capped, and on whose sides the patches 
of snow and ice are plainly discernible. 



IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 143 

As we stand on the northern span we see 
a shower gathering about Mount Washington, 
and sweeping down the notch. Washington 
is hidden from view, and then follows Mun- 
roe ; Willey and Webster disappear, and the 
bank of fog, swirling and swaying with the 
force of the wind, draws nearer and nearer. 

In the midst of it all, in the gap between 
Bartlett and Kearsarge, high in the air, and 
in the very path of the wind, soars a large 
hawk. He sways back and forward, ever 
and anon coming to a standstill, facing and 
in the very teeth of the gale, and hovering 
there without the slightest discernible motion, 
braving and conquering the very power of 
the wind, a grand triumph of skill and power. 
It was a majestic sight. 

The wind is so strong that we are glad to 
get under the lee of a little house which 
crowns the summit, and which is firmly bound 
to the rock with iron rods. 

After plucking a few flowers of the bear- 
berry as mementoes for absent friends, we 
strike down the side of the mountain, avoid- 
ing the paths, and soon are crashing our way 
throuojh the foliage, below timber line. 



10 



144 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

This is the way to really enjoy mountain 
scenery. If we cling to the regular paths 
with a guide to explain the points of interest, 
we shall see beautiful views, we shall inhale 
the glorious mountain air, but we shall miss 
the unlooked for bits of beauty, in the spots 
frequented only by the wild animals, and the 
delightful uncertainty of where we shall bring 
up. Perhaps we shall easily come to a path 
winding around the mountain side, which 
shall lead us to civilization, and perhaps to 
an inaccessible cliff, whose overhanging brow 
warns us that we must either retreat, to search 
for a safer descent, or compel us to make a 
lono^ detour to reach the bottom. 

The next morning, my companion, the 
photographer of the expedition, Wm. H. 
Wilson of Boston, having arrived on the 
scene, we packed our knapsacks, put up our 
black-fly killer and boarded our train for 
farther up the notch. 

It was our original intention to have 
ascended the valley of Dead or Mt. Wash- 
ington River, and make the ascent of the 
Monarch of the Presidential range from that 
side, via the river bed. But we found that 
several parties had been through there with 



IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 145 

camera and rod, and as our idea was to get 
some pictures where that everlasting 
Appalachian Mountain Club had not been, 
we turned the other way. 

By the way, I am not paid to blow my 
bugle for the Appalachian Mountain Club, 
but I want to thank them right here for their 
excellent habit of piling up monuments of 
rocks. to point out vague paths on the moun- 
tain sides ; they saved me some hard 
climbing, this year. Long may they pile 
rocks to guide the wandering footsteps of 
those who reap the fruits of others' sowing. 

But I need some monuments to keep me 
on the straight track. 

Various incidents turned affairs so that we 
got fired off the train at Avalanche Station, 
near the old Willey House, the scene of the 
well-known tragedy. 

We stood for a moment watching the tail 
end of the train as it sped up the track 
toward the end where it closes in. 

Below us was the same old Saco River of 
numerous turnings and windings, and beyond 
it Mt. Webster reared its old bald head 
against the sky. 



146 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

We looked at Mts. Willarcl and Willey 
and groaned at the steep hill which lay be- 
fore us, and I inwardly wept as I thought of 
the hard-tack and salt pork in my knapsack, 
and my mouth watered for the flesh pots of 
civilized life, and I wanted to go back. 
But while we groaned, we strapped on our 
packs, picked up our guns, and with a na- 
tive to put us on the right track, started up 
the slope. 

We soon were on our proper path, and 
bade our guide a long, lingering farewell ; 
more sad, because he was the first man whom 
I had struck in New Hampshire who would 
not take a *'tip" for service rendered, and I 
feared he would not live long, — he was too 
delicate for that gall-bracing climate. I 
found his mate when I came back. God 
bless them I They restored my faith in hu- 
manity. I had begun to think that I was 
only the creature of unfortunate circum- 
stances doomed to unlock my pocket, for the 
benefit of humanity. But the inhabitants 
must make hay while the sun shines, and the 
rich ( ?) tourist is game to be bled. 

We tramped along the top of the ridge 
which separates the valley of the Saco from 



IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 147 

that of the Pemigewasset, until the afternoon 
was well on the downward track, and as a 
slight rain had set in we began to think of 
camp. 

The great desiderata of camp are wood and 
water. We had enough of both, such as 
they were, but they were both decidedly in- 
convenient. The wood was green, and the 
water in too small drops to be anything but 
wet, so we turned southwest down the slope 
till we struck the edge of a logger's tract, 
fiom the like of which to see again, may the 
saints deliver mo. Big logs and small logs, 
tree-tops piled cross-ways, end- ways, and all 
other ways, tough when we wanted to break 
them, and frail and rotten when we wanted 
to climb upon them, but we got over at last. 
(O my ! but this was play to what we got 
later on.) 

Here we separated to find the way out, or 
rather in, for we did not want to go out, and 
I was down in the lowland ankle-deep in 
water, mud and moss, hunting for the brook, 
when a shot from Nash's gun, followed by a 
cry from a bird which I did not recognize, 
and soon another shot, betokened something 
of vahie. I got back to my pack, which I 



148 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

had gladly laid down while I was anathe- 
matizino- the weather and the fates which 
brought me here, and hunting for water, of 
which we apparently had too much already, 
for the whole side of the mountain was one 
vast sponge. 

We found Nash looking at a hole in the 
side of a tree, from which emanated a suc- 
cession of cries, which sounded like a troop 
of angry cats. He held in his hand a pair of 
woodpeckers, which I recognized as the Arc- 
tic 3-toed variety, and as I had never before 
seen the nest of this bird, I was correspond- 
ingly elated. 

The hole was excavated from the solid 
green wood of a tree ten inches in diameter, 
about twenty feet from the ground. 

At this date, June 27, 1890, the eggs had 
hatched, and this fact was made evident to 
everyone in the vicinity, by the vociferous 
cries which issued from the cavity. 

The entrance was one and a half inches in 
diameter, and the hole was ten inches deep, 
with a width of tive inches and with one and 
a half inches of wood between it and the out- 
side. The nest was composed of chips and 
moss. 



IN THE A\TIITE MOUNTAINS. 



149 



The stomachs of the young birds contained 
larvae of pine borers and other remains of 
insects, mingled with bits of coarse gravel. 
The generative organs were well marked, 
all three of the birds, which made up the 
complement, being males. The color of the 
iris was reddish-brown. 

The most striking peculiarity however, 
was a curious white, gristly process on either 
side of the lower mandible at the base of the 
bill, as shown in the followins^ engravino-. 




a. Side ^ bill of adult. 

b. Under side., bill of adult. 

c. Under side., billofyonng. 

BILL OF PICOIDES ABC TIC US. 



This peculiar formation has apparently 
never been noticed before, at least I can find 
no record of it. 



150 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

William Brewster, in his ** Description of 
First Plumages," makes no mention of find- 
ing it on a skin collected July 31, although 
it is possible that it might shrink away in 
drying, or might disappear before that stage 
of development, as his specimen was four 
weeks older than than mine. Unfortunately 
my specimens were not preserved, for we 
were not prepared for alcholic specimens, 
but I have a photograph of the birds taken 
while alive, that shows the formation very 
well. 

In May, 1892, William Brewster made 
observations on a brood of young Flickers 
(Colaptes auratus) and observed the same 
conformation, an account of which was soon 
after published in The Auk. 

In this very excellent record of his obser- 
vations, he advances the theory that the 
membrane aided the parents in placing the 
food in the mouths of the young birds. 

Having paid full attention to this nest, we 
again turned our footsteps down the hill, and 
soon came across Ripley's Brook, which 
empties into the Saco River, near where we 
entered the woods. 



IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 151 

It was our opinion, which was later con- 
firmed, that this brook had its rise on the 
ridge which separates the two valleys, and so 
we turned our steps toward its head-waters. 

This little valley, or swampy run, is filled 
with a luxuriant growth of underbrush and 
small growth, the high spruce having been 
cut off by the loggers. 

At 5 P. M. we concluded that we had done 
about as much as was desirable for that day , 
and as we had found dry wood, and water in 
plenty, and saw no immediate prospect of 
finding dry land, we threw off our packs and 
concluded to lay up for the night. 

We had no tent with us, for we knew that 
it would be inadvisable to encumber ourselves 
with camp equipage, and we were prepared 
to meet any emergency Avith equanimity. In 
fact, we found that it would be impossible to 
carry any extra weight, for sometimes, in 
spite of the light load we carried, (only 45 
pounds, including guns, being allowed to 
each man) , we found that we could not travel 
much over a mile an hour. 

The ground was wet and swampy, the 
dead tree trunks had fallen in every direction, 
and it was a continuous drag all the time. 



152 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

Hence we knew that we must make the best 
of the goods that nature had strewn around 
us. 

Fortunately, a substitute for canvas, is 
found in this locality, and the bark of the 
white birch, which easily, at this time of the 
year, peels off in large sheets, makes a fine 
roof, impenetrable to the most driving rain, 
when properly shingled on to roof-poles. 

The weather had settled down to a light, 
drizzling rain, so while one peeled birch bark 
for a cover, the other two gathered poles for 
a bed, twigs for a mattress, and wood for a 
fire, which was soon blazing merrily before 
the camp, and throwing its sparks up into 
the darkness, which had by this time gathered 
close around us. 

What a difierence the camp-fire makes ; a 
few moments before Ave were silently digging 
away, pulling and hauling at logs and bark, 
and anathematizing the fates which had got 
us into such a scrape, and now we were 
busily and happily engaged in preparing 
supper, and laughing and chatting over the 
pleasure and trials of the day. 

The rain was falling fast, but what did we 
care, we had a camp-fire, built of great logs, 



IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 153 

as large as a man could lift, and the two 
2:reat back losfs threw the heat of the fire 
into our shelter, and reflected by the roof, 
made it almost uncomfortably warm, and 
perfectly dry. 

By the way, how few men, even those who 
go camping, know how to properly build a 
camp fire. It is an old saying that it takes 
* 'either a wise man or a fool to kindle a fire," 
but the latter has no show at all, when it 
comes to properly setting up a camp-fire on 
a stormy night. 

Roll a large log on top of another, holding 
it in place by stakes. If you have no large 
logs, build a screen of smaller ones, at least 
18 inches thick, and 3 feet high. Kindle 
your fire in front of that, and when you have 
got some live coals, rake them to one side for 
a cooking fire, and if you are not comfortable 
do not try camp life, stay at home where you 
can have steam heat and hair mattresses. But 
if you want to breathe pure air, before it has 
been used by an unwashed horde, give over 
your daintiness, and go camping. 

Now the readers will perhaps remember 
that friend Nash mentioned bears. Now the 
bear is a tender point to a naturalist, and I 



154 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

must confess that I have long htigged to my 
bosom, a cherished idea that I shall some day 
shoot at a bear. I talked bear to every man I 
met, mitil the subject was worn bare, but I 
did not see one, I heard some good bear- 
stories, however, and I cannot refrain from 
relating one, which seems to illustrate the 
grim humor of these old mountaineers. 

It seems that an old hunter had brought 
some bear-scalps to the selectmen of the town 
to lay claim to the state bounty, which is 
double the sum paid in the state of Maine. 
The town officials had shown some doubt as 
to the place of capture of the animals, and 
insinuated that they were shot in Maine, and 
brought over into New Hampshire for the 
large bounty. This the old hunter combatted 
very strenuously, and was highly indignant 
that he should be accused of fraud. 

One morning, the worthy chairman of the 
board of town fathers, went out to feed his 
cattle, and hearing a great noise up the street 
went out info the roadway to investigate. 
Soon the noise grew louder, and a bear, 
black with sweat appeared, driven by a pack 
of dogs, and followed by the old hunter and 
his strapping family of boys, rifle in hand. 



IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 155 

They drove the bear down, rounded him 
up in the yard, and shot him. 

** There, confound you !" says the hunter, 
'< was that bear shot in New Hampshire?" 

They had hunted out the bear and driven 
him several miles to practically demonstrate 
the fact of his words, to the authorities. 

But I have got off my reservation. 

After supper we made up our notes for the 
day, put our firearms in order and rolled up 
in our blankets. 

Most people have an idea, that all birds 
are quiet during the night, except the owls 
and whip-poor-wills, but there is one excep- 
tion to the rule at least, and I made his ac- 
quaintance here. 

The White-throated Sparrows are very 
plentiful in these high altitudes, and their 
sweet voices can be heard calling to each 
other all the day long ; and when I awoke 
after midnight, when the camp-fire had gone 
down, and, the clouds having passed on, the 
stars shone down through the thin branches, 
I heard the voice of one of them calling from 
far up the mountain side ; and again, when 
the sun put up its first rosy shaft of light in 



156 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

the east, they first of all woke the echoes and 
welcomed the coming day. 

The morning of June 28th broke bright 
and fair, and we were up betimes, drying our 
clothing and preparing for the day's tramp. 

What a task it is to 2fet thino-s straio^htened 

o o c* 

out after a wet day in the woods. Shoes are 
hard, clothes are wet, guns are dirty and 
often rusty, but patience brings things out all 
right in the end, and the bright sun gave 
token of a more pleasant day than the pre- 
ceding, and work went ofi" easier, with 
brighter prospects ahead. 

We got away early, and struck up the 
lumber road for a few rods, to the head of the 
brook, and then headed for the top of the 
divide. 

The axe of the lumberman had probably 
never been struck in here, and travelling was 
a little easier, through the underbrush made 
it rather hard in places. 

W^hen, at last, we reached the top, the 
slope was so gradual that it was impossible 
to get any observation of the surrounding 
country over the tree tops, and so we started 
due west as a venture. We soon heard the 
noise of running water and found that it was 



IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 157 

running in the right direction to bring it fin- 
ally into the Pemigewasset River, so we fol- 
lowed its course. 

We had gone about two miles and the 
brook had become considerably increased in 
size, while the banks showed that a consider- 
able body of water flowed through here at 
times. 

Suddenly Waldo, who was ahead, sang 
out : 

'*Hold on, boys, there are trout here, we 
must have some for supper." 

I had never caught trout from a mountain 
stream, and I was immediately interested. 

Now stop a minute, I want to dream over 
that a little. 

There are two events in a man's life , which 
he never fors^ets. The time when he smokes 
his first cigar, and when he catches his first 
trout. There is a world of pleasure and 
anxiety in both, so I fill my pipe and think, — 
about the latter event. 

Soon the light fades and I am off and away. 
The odor of spruce and fir, mingled with that 
of the fragrant weed, and the fresh cool 
mountain air sweeps across my brow. Tall 
trees surround me, and far away sounds the 



158 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

rush of falling waters as they huny away 
toward the intervale a thousand feet below. 

A log crosses the stream and the waters, 
dammed by its corse , flow over it to the little 
pool below. Knapsack and gun are strapped 
to my back, and I am poised on the slippery 
rock, with line just dropping into the pool. 
No split bamboo, with supple strength, no 
silken line with power within its dainty fibres ; 
no gaudy fly to deceive the watchful eye that 
I think lies behind that mossy I02:. Xothino^ 
but an alder pole cut in yonder thicket, a 
hook and line fished from the depths of my 
ditty-bag, (the last time it was used it caught 
minnows in one of Plymouth's wood-fringed 
ponds), a worm impaled on the cruel barb. 

As the dainty morsel touches the water, 
there is a flash, a swirl and over the log comes 
the spotted beauty. My first trout, an even 
foot long. Worthy to have tested the skill 
of Danforth himself, and to have been played 
on one of Chubbs best with gold mountings. 

The' vision is gone and once more I sit in 
my den. Instead of the tall dark spruce 
trunks, are rows of books, and the fisherman 
is only a poor scribbler resting from the la- 
bors of the day. 



IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 159 

Well ! well I half the fun of oomo^ fishinof, 
is thinking about it afterwards. 

After we had got as many fish as we 
thought would be about right for supper, we, 
having assured ourselves that we were on the 
east branch of the Pemigewasset, which was 
dnr objective point, turned our footsteps 
once more toward the rising sun. A course 
due east was struck, and we plodded along, 
constantly ascending the ridge, which ran 
nearly northeast and southwest. 

After we left the river valley, we found 
the first bit of dry land we had seen since 
we left, and it was no great shakes at it 
either. 

Here the ground was padded with tracks 
and signs of deer and bear, but we saw 
nothing of them, though I heard a bear on 
tlie night before, by the brook, near the 
camp. 

At about 4.30 p. m. the country ahead 
began to look familiar, and shortly after we 
struck a windfall on the opposite side from 
where we were in the morning. 

The camp of the night before was on the 
other side of that pile of wood, and rather 
than build a new one, we decided to cross it. 

11 



160 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

Shades of our grandfathers ! but that was a 
job. 

Here were great trees, torn bodily from 
the ground and piled lengthwise, crosswise, 
and all other- wise, slippery and often brittle, 
with knapsack and gun to look after, and 
when a fall of fifteen or twenty feet meant 
danger by impalement on the cruel looking 
stubs below. 

It took us forty-five minutes to go about 
six hundred feet, but we got across all safely 
and before dark were again comfortably in- 
stalled at "Birch Camp," as we had named 
it, and busily engaged in refreshing the inner 
man with broiled trout. 

As the first rays of the morning sun 
flecked the tree tops at three-fifty a. m., on 
June 29th, I threw off the blankets and got 
out for a breath of the pure, crisp mountain 
air, which soon gave me a desire for some- 
thing more satisfying. 

Our menu was generally composed about 

as follows : 

Breakfast. 
Hard Tack. Fried Pork. Coffee. 

Lunch. 
Raw Pork. Hard Tack. Water. 



IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 161 

Supper. 
Coffee. Fried Pork. Hai'd Tack. 

Unless the rod or o^un turned in somethins: 
to help out. But this never got beyond 
supper. 

But this morning, being Sunday, I thought 
I would give my companions who were still 
snoring under the blankets, a change. So I 
put some hard tack to soak in a birch bark 
dish, and fried out some pork, in which I 
afterwards fried the crackers ; and let me tell 
you, friends, that concoction is not to be 
sneezed at, when made with Johnson's Edu- 
cators (which by the way, is the best and 
lightest variety of wheat nourishment that I 
have found ) , and good country corn-fed 
pork. At least I judged so, from the man- 
ner in Avhich it disappeared when my com- 
panions got at it. I had to make some more 
for myself. 



Finally we packed our traps for our last 
journey toward civilization. We carefully 
extinguished the last embers of our camp- 
fire ; cut the cords which held the rude shelter 



162 LAKE, FIELD AND FOKEST. 

which had kept off the rains, took a final 
draught of the crystal waters which bubbled 
from the mountain side and started on our way 
down the loggers' road. 

It was a beautiful day ; hardly a cloud 
dimmed the crystal transparency of the blue 
vault above us, and it seemed as though one 
could almost look away into its unimaginable 
distance and see the other worlds beyond. 

The birds, which gradually were becoming 
more plentiful as we approached nearer the 
railroad, were filling the air with their music, 
and tempting us to leave the road to clamber 
over the fallen logs and through the under- 
brush which lay on either side. 

The road was not as good as I have seen, 
in fact it was at times rather difficult to find 
it at all, but when we came to a more than 
usually swampy place, we found corduroys 
laid over the mud, and we "of two evils 
chose the least," and only left the track for 
an occasional examination of some more than 
usually interesting feature. 

We had been following the brook, at a 
little distance from the bank, for some time, 
and had heard a murmurino; sound throbbins^ 
through the air, when Will says : 



IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 163 

"I think there must be falls below here, 
let's go and investigate " ; so we pushed our 
way through the brush to the bank, and the 
grandeur of a water-fall burst upon our view. 
One hundred and twenty-five feet above us 
the waters of this brook fell over the edge 
and striking its side, which inclined at an 
angle which gave it a slope of about 150 feet, 
slid down at lightning speed, breaking the 
pool below into a mass of foam. On either 
side the walls rose up in almost inaccessible 
precipitousness, while below a continuous 
series of cascades carried the \vater to the 
valley of the Saco, 700 feet below. 

It was hard to leave the scene. 

Continuing our journey, at noon we came 
out on the side of the mountain above Ava- 
lanche Station, near where we entered three 
days before. But what a change. Then the 
sky was overcast, and the murky clouds hung 
low^ over the mountain-tops, hiding the peaks 
of some of the higher ones from view ; banks 
of mist came rolling down the Notch, tempo- 
rarily hiding it frcmi view, and the drizzling 
rain made all uncomfortable. But now all 
was transformed. The air was as clear as 
possible in these high altitudes, where the 



164 LAKE, FIELD AND FOREST. 

very atmosphere seemed so transparent 
that it ahnost dazzled the brain ; the Decep- 
tion Mountains showed their stony wall rising 
at the head of the Notch seven miles away as 
clearly as if it were but one ; and we im- 
proved the opportunity by photographing the 
scene in what is, we think, the most remarka- 
ble view ever taken with a small Kodak 
camera (unfortunately the plate was damaged 
by the stupidit}^ of the operator who devel- 
oped the film) , Ijut even now it stands as one 
of the choicest scenes in my album of remin- 
iscences. 

No train would run down the Notch until 
the next morning, so we deposited our heavy 
luggage at the station, to be forwarded by 
express, and we continued on down the val- 
ley, now following the railroad and again tak- 
ing the road, as the fit seized us, passing the 
outlets of Washington River, which carries 
oif a portion of the deposited moisture of 
the Old Giant, and Nancy's Brook, which 
drains the region of Mountains Nancy and 
Carrigan. 

Frankenstein Trestle and the old Crawford 
House, with their many associations, were 
left behind and as we progressed on our way 



IN THE \^^HITE MOUNTAINS. 165 

we had the unusual pleasure of viewing no 
less than seven sunsets, as the various peaks 
successively hid it from view as we travelled 
down the grade. We reached Bartlett in 
time to go to bed, and closed one of the 
most interesting trips of my experience. 



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A Handy Book For Gunners and 
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THE 

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BY 



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President "Boston Scientific Society," and formerly 
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I am prepared to execute commissions from Sports- 
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With 30 years' experience in handling goods used by 
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FRANK A. BATES, 

p. O. Box 160. SOUTH BRAINTREE, MASS. 




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FRANK A. BATES, ISI^' 



BATES' LDCHL HlSTOaY SERIES. 

Ancient Iron Works at Braintree, , 

(First in America.) 

Revolutionarij Soldiers of Braintree. 
Early Schools of Braintree, 

(OTHERS TO FOLLOW.) 
By 

SAMUEL A. BATES, 

Vice-President of Quincy Historical Society. Honorary Member of 
Weymouth, Old Colony, and Maine Historical Societies. 



Author of " History of Braintree, Mass." 

Editor of '' Printed Records of Braintree." 



Settled in 1G25, incorporated in 1G40, and the birth- 
place of John Hancock, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, 
men who stood as ramparts to the country in her days of 
trouble, the history of this town is fraught with interest 
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Ancient Iron Works at Brain tree. 

The site of tlie first Iron Worlis iu tliis country has 
been claimed by several towns, but the arguments of Mr. 
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His book gives all the various conveyances of land around 
this grant, and locates explicitly the farms of many of our 
older settlers. It is extremely valuable to genealogists as 
well as interesting to the historical student, and has been 
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reading, as has also the last volume of the series. 

The Soldiers of tlie Revolution, 

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The books of this series are for sale at the uniform 
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For the convenience of the trade all books are for 
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C. A. OGDEN, 



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JUL 31 lisyy 



